9.1 Introduction to Report Writing
Melissa Ashman; Arley Cruthers; eCampusOntario; Ontario Business Faculty; and University of Minnesota
Chapter Learning Outcomes
In this chapter, you will:
- Describe how audience analysis impacts report writing
- Identify different types of reports.
- Distinguish between different organization styles for reports.
- Apply required features to formal reports.
Workplace Context
As with any other workplace document, reports have to be prepared depending on the needs of the audience and on the purpose of the document. Some audiences may need more information than others, some may be more technical than others, some confidential workplace data may be fine to share with some groups but not with others, etc. Whenever tasked with writing a report, take some time to understand what your audience’s needs might be — and if you are not sure, talk to a few relevant people to make sure you start with the right idea. Consider, for instance, how a monthly progress report on a project might differ if it is prepared for the entire team working on a project or for the board of directors. In terms of purpose, consider how a progress report might differ from a proposal to invest in a new technology. The latter would require significantly more research, whereas the former would mostly consist of factual information gathered from the departments involved and briefly analyzed.
Generally speaking, workplace reports do not involve presenting information on certain topics at an elementary level and in vague terms — they require presenting specific information and often research data and analytical commentary.
Let us start our discussion of reports by considering the following questions:
- Have you ever written a report in the workplace? (Incident report, progress report, etc.?) How did you compose the report? Did you encounter any challenges? If so, what were they?
- Have you ever written a report as part of a course? What was the purpose of the report? How did you write it? Did you encounter any challenges? If so, what were they?
- Select one or more concepts that we’ve studied so far this semester. How do you think it will be useful when writing reports?
- How do you think a report differs from an essay?
This chapter has been adapted from the following text:
Business Writing For Everyone by Arley Cruthers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
