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In higher education and work, formal reports communicate information to others without the need for
meetings. If you are required to explain your work to others in this way, effective reports are vital.
Effective reports will give you a professional image and get others to take your work seriously.
You may be required to produce written reports as part of your course, so you will have opportunities to
enhance your report writing skills. Reports can form a regular part of assessed work and can be needed if
you're involved in extra-curricular activities with societies or external groups.
Reports are a way of informing and persuading people as well as initiating change. You might prepare or
contribute to annual, project or progress reports. A well-structured report that has clear objectives will get
more attention and is more likely to produce the intended results.
Reports have their own structure and this is distinct from the form of an essay.
Essays are mainly used to allow you to demonstrate your ideas and arguments to tutors. Written reports
provide specific research-based information which results in a course of action being decided and acted on.
Reports are designed to give information concisely and accurately. A formal report has an impersonal and
objective "tone of voice". The main argument is clear and uses a minimum of words. Accurately presented
facts are in the main body of the report - your evaluation of these is in the "conclusions" and
"recommendations" sections.
Reports tend to follow a standard structure but much depends on the circumstances in which they are being
written. It helps to ask your lecturers, employers or mentors what they expect - there may be an accepted
way of writing a report appropriate to either your course, employment or professional body.
Purpose of Reports
Reports communicate information which has been compiled as a result of research and analysis of data and
of issues. Reports can cover a wide range of topics, but usually focus on transmitting information with a
clear purpose, to a specific audience. Good reports are documents that are accurate, objective and complete.
They should also be well-written, clearly structured and expressed in a way that holds the reader's attention
and meets their expectations.
The true value of the research may be assessed through a report since the written report may be the "only
tangible product of hundreds of hours of work.
Rightly or wrongly, the quality and worth of that work are judged by the quality of the written report - its
clarity, organization and content" (Blake & Bly, 1993: 119). Often reports are structured in a way that
reflects the information finding process and the writing up of the findings: that is, summary of the contents,
introduction or background, methods, results, discussion, conclusion and/or recommendations.
The inclusion of recommendations is one reason why reports are a common form of writing in industry, as
the informed recommendations are useful for decision making.
The scope and style of reports varies widely. It depends on three key factors: the report's intended audience,
the report's purpose and the type of information to be communicated; for example, technical reports
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communicate technical information, so the degree of technicality in the report will depend on the reader's
familiarity and understanding of technical concepts.
The following comments have been made by senior managers in a large engineering company about what
they look for in a good report. You might like to ask your tutor if they would agree with these observations.
(Sections marked with an asterisk (*) are essential: others are optional depending on the type, length and
purpose of the report.)
1. Letter of transmittal
2. Title page*
3. Table of contents
4. List of abbreviations and/or glossary
5. Executive summary/abstract
6. Introduction*
7. Body*
8. Conclusion*
9. Recommendations
10. Bibliography
11. Appendices
Presentation and style are important. First impressions count, so consider these simple tips:
Avoid these:
AUDIENCE
The answers to these questions will help you to decide what to put in the report and what style to write it in:
End of Summary
Introduction
Report writing is an essential skill for professionals in almost every field: accountants, teachers, graphic
designers, information scientists (the list goes on). That’s one of the reasons why your lecturers will almost
certainly require you to write reports during your period of study at the University of Canberra.
A report aims to inform, as clearly and succinctly as possible. It should be easy to read, and professional in
its presentation.
Exactly what you include in your report and how you present it will vary according to your discipline and
the specific purpose of the report. Here we give some general guidelines, but you should check with your
lecturer for more detail on what is expected.
A common problem is that students transfer what they have learned about essay writing to report writing.
formal style
careful proof-reading and neat presentation
introduction, body and conclusion
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analytical thinking
A Report An Essay
Presents information Presents an argument
Is meant to be scanned quickly by the reader Is meant to be read carefully
Uses numbered headings and sub-headings Uses minimal sub-headings, if any.
May not need references and Always needs references and bibliography/reference list
bibliography/reference list
Uses short, concise paragraphs and dot- Links ideas into cohesive paragraphs, rather than breaking
points where applicable them down into a list of dot-points
Uses graphics wherever possible (tables, Rarely uses graphics
graphs, illustrations)
May need an abstract (sometimes called an Will only need an abstract if it is very long, or if your lecturer
executive summary) asks for one specifically
May be followed by recommendations Seldom has recommendations or appendices
and/or appendices
Report structure
What follows is a generic structure for reports. Using this structure will help to give your report the correct
level of formality; it will also help to ensure that you do not leave out anything important. However, the
actual structure required by your discipline may not be exactly what is represented here - you should check
with your lecturer.
(Sections marked with an asterisk (*) are essential: others are optional depending on the type, length and
purpose of the report.)
1. Letter of transmittal
2. Title page*
3. Table of contents
4. List of abbreviations and/or glossary
5. Executive summary/abstract
6. Introduction*
7. Body*
8. Conclusion*
9. Recommendations
10. Bibliography
11. Appendices
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Letter of transmittal
This is a letter to the person who commissioned the report, in which you effectively hand over your work to
that person. Include:
Title page
the report title which clearly states the purpose of the report
full details of the person(s) for whom the report was prepared
full details of the person(s) who prepared the report
the date of the presentation of the report
Table of Contents
This is a list of the headings and appendices of the report. Depending on the complexity and length of the
report, you could list tables, figures and appendices separately. Make sure the correct page numbers are
shown opposite the contents. Up-to-date word processing packages can generate a table of contents for you.
If necessary, you should provide an alphabetical list of the abbreviations you have used in the report,
especially if they may not be familiar to all readers of the report.
If you have used a lot of technical terms, you should also provide a glossary (an alphabetical list of the
terms, with brief explanations of their meanings).
This is a short paragraph thanking any person or organization which gave you help in collecting data or
preparing the report.
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An abstract is quite different from an introduction. It is a summary of the report, in which you include one
sentence (or so) for every main section of your report. For example, you can include:
Introduction
Body
The content of the body depends on the purpose of the report, and whether it is a report of primary or
secondary research.
A report of primary research (based on your own observations and experiments) would include:
• Literature review (what other people have written about this topic. See our webpage for hints on
writing a literature review). The literature review should lead towards your research question.
• Method (summarises what you did and why). Use the past tense.
• Findings or results (describes what you discovered, observed, etc, in your observations and
experiments). Use the past tense.
• Discussion (discusses and explains your findings and relates them to previous research). Use the
present tense to make generalisations.
• Information organised under appropriate topics with sub-headings. It is unlikely that your report
will discuss each source separately. You need to synthesise material from different sources under topic
headings.
• Analysis/discussion of the sources you are reporting.
Conclusion
Sum up the main points of the report. The conclusion should clearly relate to the objectives of your report.
No surprises please! (that is, don’t include new information here.)
These are suggestions for future action. They must be logically derived from the body of your report.
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Bibliography
Appendices
An appendix contains material which is too detailed, technical, or complex to include in the body of the
report (for example, specifications, a questionnaire, or a long complex table of figures), but which is
referred to in the report. Appendices are put at the very end of the report, after everything else. Each
appendix should contain different material. Number each appendix clearly.
The content and structure of your report is important; so is the presentation and style. First impressions
count, so consider these simple tips to ensure your report is reader-friendly:
Common problems
Some common problems with research report writing that you should take care to avoid are: