 Lecture 22, As-Salaam-Alaikum. Welcome to the virtual university's course on business and technical communication. In today's lesson, we will look at how to write short reports. In this lecture, you will learn to identify the qualities of good reports and proposals. You will also learn how to choose the proper length and format of your report and how to make decisions on when to use direct versus indirect order. We will also be looking at how to organize informational and analytical reports, establishing an appropriate degree of formality in the report and also we look at the use of headings, lists, transitions, openings and summaries to guide readers through a particular report. Now, what makes a good report? All of you in business situations will need to write reports and you need to know what a good report means. Reports are essentially a management tool and even the most capable managers rely on other people to collect information and present it to them in the form of reports. And you may be surprised that a variety of documents are classified or they qualify as reports. The reports are not only thick documents which are 100 pages long, even short memos can be reports. And the word report basically covers everything from pre-printed forms to brief informal letters, memos to large 3-4 volume manuscripts. All of these are classified as reports. We write and read all kinds of documents in our business situations and many of them are reports. The goal of developing a report is to make information as clear and as convenient as possible so that the reader can find information clearly, conveniently and finds whatever has been written down in the report. The reader finds it accessible. Good reports have three things in common. First, the information is accurate. Whatever information is accurate in a good report, there is no mistake in it. Secondly, the content shows the writer's good judgment. Whatever is included in the report should show the judgment of the writer and the format, style and organization respond to the reader's needs. The reader who wants to read the report should follow the format, style and organization of the report and keep an eye on the audience. Especially, keep an eye on the company's style and keep an eye on the purpose of the report. There are three things in every report. Accuracy, good judgment of the writer and the reader's purpose and the reader's needs are written according to the report. The first thing is accuracy. The key thing that a business report must have is that it must tell the truth. To ensure accuracy, as a report writer you need to check the facts and you need to reduce distortion. If there is anything that you think is exaggerated or something is wrong, then reduce it. You need to describe facts and events in concrete terms so that there is no distortion. It's better to say something like sales have increased from Rs. 400,000 to Rs. 450,000 in two months rather than sales have skyrocketed. If you say that sales have skyrocketed then you are generally saying that sales have increased but you are not saying anything in a concrete way. But if you use figures that have reached sales then you are more concrete and your facts are more accurate. Also, you need to report all relevant facts regardless of whether these facts will support your thesis or please your readers. They are included. If there are any facts or information that you think your readers may not be happy or your readers may not want to read it but it is true and your thesis is matching your main idea with it or supporting it. If you are telling something about it then you will have to include those facts. Readers will be misled if you hesitate to be the bearer of bad news and leave out unpleasant information. If you feel that information is bad and you think your readers may not want to read it and you will not include it then you are not giving the right pictures to your readers and you are misleading them. So it is better to include whatever information is good or bad if it is relevant. You also need to put all the facts in perspective. If you tell your reader something like the value of stock has doubled in three weeks you are just giving a partial picture. You are just saying that it has doubled but you are not saying where it was first and what it has become now. So you will have a much better understanding if you say the value of stock has doubled in three weeks rising from Rs. 2 to Rs. 4 per share on the rumor of a potential merger. Now you talked more concrete in this and you put it in perspective as well. You compared the price of the stock and the current price and you also told the reason why this price has risen. Also you should give plenty of evidence and conclusions, whatever conclusions you are drawing. If you are telling that something has happened and it has happened because of this then you will have to give evidence along with it that why this thing has happened. Statements like we have to recognize the sales force or we are bound to lose market share may or may not be true. Readers have no way of knowing that you may lose your market share by having a smaller workforce to provide them sufficient data to support your claim. So if you are saying that we have to increase the market force or increase the sales force so that we don't lose our market share then you have to give sufficient data and give evidence along with your claim. You have to tell that with this sales force you are getting so much market share and if you increase it you will get more and what is the assumption on what basis you have searched for because of which you know that you can't claim anything just based on guesswork. Also try to present only objective evidence and conclusions which can be verified verifiable conclusions. Try to avoid drawing conclusions from too less information. If you have a little information and you feel that this is not enough then on the basis of that don't draw any conclusions. Collect all the information and then decide on the basis of that information. Also don't assume that a preceding event is the cause of what follows. If something has happened before then as a result of that the next event is not necessary. For example, if the sales decreased after a new advertising agency was contracted it doesn't mean that the agency is to blame. Other factors may have a role in the decrease of sales. So it is not necessary that if an event has happened then as a result of that there may be one factor or a small factor there may be a big factor but you need proof for that so first look at other factors and then make an assumption and present it as your judgment. Also an effective report is one in which there are no biases. Even if you have a personal bias in the subject of your report try to keep your feelings from influencing your choice of words. If you have your own bias you are going towards one side but don't show it in your report. Your report should be factual and not based on your feelings and you should use your words to understand that if your words are negative then they are not negative because of your personal bias or if they are positive then you shouldn't say that your actions are more preferable but what are the hard facts because such biases if you have personal biases and they come across in your report they not only offend the reader but they also obscure the facts and they provoke emotional responses. So since the reports have to be factual you can't rely on emotions. So try to keep your personal biases to one side when you are writing a factual report. Apart from keeping your personal biases to a side you also need to use your good judgment. Many of your biases have to be kept on their side but you have to use your judgment that what I am writing whether it is logical or not keeping in mind the facts and the evidence in front of you do not include anything in your report that might jeopardize you or your company if you feel that you have to read this report on which your company or your career decision will be then include anything that you risk. Keep politics out of your report provide a clear direct accounting of facts every company has politics every organization has politics but if you try to not bring that politics into your report keep your facts direct keep them away from politics and personal biases. Five points must be kept in mind when you are writing a good report keeping in mind the first is getting the main idea at the beginning of the report it is very important to present your main idea in the beginning so that the reader will know what is the report also the reader should be able to see all the facts in the report the facts on which you have drawn conclusions should be included in the report so that you can understand whether it is understood or obvious I don't need to tell the reader don't think about it you need to tell the reader every fact so that the evidence is recorded and the conclusion should be clear also the reader should receive the whole story don't leave out facts because you think that it is not important to include them or don't leave out things of politics or because you want to present one side of the picture give the whole story and let the reader have the whole story so that he can also judge and match his judgment to yours also include language that the reader can understand and try to give something in your report through which the reader will learn something that will make their job easier if in your report the things that are included are the things that the reader already knows and with that there will be no benefit in the work of the reader then there is no benefit of that report it is obvious that the reader will not be interested try to include things in your report which will actually benefit the reader in some way or the other things that will increase the reader's knowledge about that particular area or topic they should get something that will make the reader benefit otherwise it is obvious that in the waste of time that you are making reports and there is nothing new the same old things that you are repeating the format, style and organization of a report are very important so before you write decide whether to use a letter memo or manuscript format decide whether you want to group your ideas in a particular way and also decide on the style you want to employ do you want to employ an informal style or a formal style of writing all these things are important considerations in writing your report when making decisions about the format style or organization of a report consider the origin of the report where is the report coming from who are you in relation to the reader what is the purpose of the report and where is the material coming from whatever material you are collecting whatever you are writing in the report where are the things coming from and who are you in relation to what is the status of your company you will write from that you also need to consider the subject what you are writing about it will have a lot of impact on the content of the report and on the style and on the organization if the subject is that the figures are being used the numbers are being used the tables will come if the report is theoretical or qualitative data is involved and there is no mention of quantities then the organizational style will be different which is written on which which is given on which that will also affect how you write it and obviously where it is going to be read the distribution who are the people who will be reading the report the purpose why will they be reading it what do they hope to gain out of it and the probable reception how are they like how is the audience likely to react and to the content of the report will they accept it positively it will be skeptical it will be disbelief by keeping all these things in mind you will write the report and its format, its style, its organization all these things will affect it when we talk about the origin of a report we need to keep in mind who initiated the report who asked obviously a lot of the times reports may be voluntary which basically means that there are reports which were prepared on your own initiative and they were not requested by anybody as such you wrote the report on your own initiative and therefore it requires more detail and support as compared to authorized reports or reports which are prepared at the request of another person for example if your boss wants to write a report on this then you may have to work hard for it but you don't need to give such a background work because your boss knows something about it only then he has asked for a report if you have an idea and you want to accept it or show it to your boss then you will present it without a report you will also have to give background information because you are introducing this idea so voluntary reports will require a lot more background work than authorized reports when you write a voluntary report you also explain your purpose more carefully you will also give a background and you will tell your purpose more carefully because now you have written that report on your own initiative and you want to convince the reader that they need to read this report whereas in authorized reports the reader knows that they want to read that report because they have told you to write that report you need to keep in mind the subject that the report covers the subject of the business report affects its format and vocabulary so whatever subject is about its format and its vocabulary will be written according to it for example an audit report would contain a lot more numbers often in the form of tables rather than a report where you are talking about the performance of employees working under you those would talk more in terms of the quality of their work the timing as I said was important when is the report prepared routine reports for example are submitted on a recurring basis they could be submitted on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis and they require a lot less background and introductory material because they are routine they are happening every so often periodically for them you don't need to do so much background material it may be that every week they are giving a report and it is a routine that at the end of the week on a particular day then you will not write the entire company's background to deal with unique situations and these then will obviously give more background the routine reports are often a pre-printed format because they have to be written every week you may have to write and many other colleagues have to write a report like that with their own views so many times the format will be printed and you have to fill it out the internal reports whether they are routine or special are generally less formal because they are only used within the company they are only used within the organization so their format is generally less formal than the format of external reports external reports are those that are sent to people outside the organization so because they are being read by people who are not part of your organization they will be more formal internal reports also are usually under 10 pages whereas external reports may exceed this limit generally the reports within the company that you will give to your colleagues will not be more than 8-10 surfers the reports outside can be this much or even more now the purpose of the report why is the report being prepared the purpose could be informational or analytical informational reports focus on facts there is one thing there are some facts there are facts and you are giving that information analytical reports however will include analysis there is something you are analyzing it there are some figures it will also include an interpretation of what you analyzed what interpretation you took based on the facts that you have in front of you conclusions and recommendations what was the decision and what decisions will be made what should be done what should be taken analytical reports will have an analysis interpretation conclusions and recommendations whereas informational reports will focus on facts they might have an interpretation section but the focus will be on the facts and not on any kind of interpretation or analysis when you are writing short reports be sure to follow the report writing customs your audience expects the following three elements influence the length and format of your report audience who it is that will read your report the purpose and the subject matter what is written in the report the length and format will be determined decisions about the format and length may be made for you by the people who request the document a lot of the times the report might be authorized by somebody and they will tell you how long it should be and what format to use for example if it is in a pre printed form then the format is decided for you anyway and the length generally speaking the more routine the report the less flexibility you have in deciding the length and format as I said if you are giving a regular report then you cannot change the format and length because it will be the same that you write every week and maybe your company has decided that how long the report is going into the routine you may perceive the report in one of the following formats it could be on a pre printed form which is basically used for fill in the blank type of reports and they deal with routine information and often this routine information is numerical it is given in the form of numbers or your report could be in the form of a letter for reports of five or fewer pages that are directed to outsiders a lot of the times they take letter format or your report could be in the form of a memo the most common format for short informal reports within an organization is a memo or a memorandum a format memos have four headings two from date and subject and then you will have the main content of the report signed by anybody because it says in the heading who it's from or your report could take a manuscript format which will be very formal and for a formal approach manuscripts range from a few pages to several hundred pages and these are generally directed to people outside of your organization now when you're establishing a basic structure of your report the choice of structure involves decisions first what to say what to say secondly you need to decide whether you're going to say the things directly or indirectly and thirdly how will you organize the ideas will they be organized according to topic or according to logic so will it be a topical organization or logical organization your report should answer the audience's key questions what ideas would you include when deciding on the content of your report the first step is to put yourself in the audience's position you need to see what it is that the audience wants and then include ideas accordingly then you need to keep in mind what are the major questions you think your audience has about the subject your objective is to answer all the questions in the order and sense whatever you think questions in the audience or you can ask you need to answer those questions in that order which is more sensible which you think this order is more logical and because after this particular question the other question will be raised in the audience's mind group together so that similar topics come into the heading the question and answer chain what questions the audience can ask and what will you answer this clarifies the main idea of your report and establishes the main flow of ideas from general to the specific first you will start with a general idea then when you think what questions the audience can ask and what will you answer your idea will be more focused and then with a general idea you can come to the specifics and talk about it in your report also you need to keep in mind that business communication tends to be concerned with details, facts, figures hard data so you need to include that wherever possible within your report for example if you if you want to answer the question why are we losing money the answer to that would be that the production costs are higher than the prices now the one main question why are the company's losses and the general answer is that the production costs are higher and the price of your product is less now the question related to this why are the productive costs higher why are the prices lower these are two main questions you can ask why are the costs higher why are the prices lower then you need to anticipate the information in your report to give you the answer to these two questions with this we will have more questions in the mind of the audience and you need to include their answer so first think what questions the audience can ask what are the answers and then collect all the data collect all the information and put it in the report form you also need to decide on the order in which you present your facts the direct order gives readers the main idea first saving time and making the report easier to understand in the direct order you will give the main idea the audience will know what will be written and obviously what they will read will be easier to understand the indirect order on the other hand withholds the main information until later on in the report and that is useful in its own right because sometimes if you feel that you are presenting an idea to which there might be resistance then you don't give the main idea first if you feel that it will not be so easy to accept then you don't give the main idea first first you give the background information and then give the main idea so the resistance the barrier of the readers will be reduced it will start reading your report it will increase the factor of acceptability and then when they get the main idea then maybe they accept it and their reaction will not be negative whereas if you tell the audience in the room they may not read it they may not know it so depending on the purpose the audience the content you will decide the order as well whether it is likely to be accepted and then you will give the main idea first and if you feel it is less likely to be accepted then you will use the indirect order and save the main idea for later regardless of whether you use the direct or indirect order in your report you must still deal with the question how your idea will be subdivided and developed the order is one thing you have decided to tell the main idea first or later now you have to see how your content your main ideas will be subdivided how you will develop them how you will group them the key is to decide first whether the purpose of your report is to provide information or analysis if you are writing an informational report or an analytical report then your work will be very easy when you are writing informational reports or memos the purpose is to explain as I mentioned earlier so then when you are writing informational reports you do not have to worry too much about the reader's reaction because you don't have to persuade them you have to explain them so you don't have to worry about their reaction they also know that the information is being given it is not necessary to take any action so therefore the main objective of your informational report will be clarity not persuasion when structuring an informational report you can let the nature of whatever you are describing be the point of departure you can start from what type of thing it is that you are describing let your thoughts develop according to that for example if you are describing the company's sales you can describe the results for the whole country and then for the geographical region the purpose of this is your company's sales so you will keep the main point of departure that overall sales and then you will subdivide it region wise some informational reports are organized according to instructions supplied by the person requesting the report the person who requested the report has given you some instructions so this is the kind of information I need in this order then you will use the same order informational reports take many forms the examples that we will look at will give you an idea of typical organization and tone they can be interim progress reports these give the customer an idea of the work they are completed to date the style of such reports is more formal than internal reports because they are giving progress to somebody who is outside the company and when writing interim reports be honest about the problems as well as the accomplishments of your company that you are writing about they can be personal activity reports now these are often in the form of brief memos and describe the facts and decisions that emerge like events, conventions, trips business meetings etc these are personal activities reports if you have gone on a meeting or if you have gone on a business trip the reports that you are writing will be these so these will then describe the facts what happened and what decisions were taken personal activity reports are ordinarily in the form of memo format these are not so formal because you are giving them obviously nobody outside the company needs to know what your personal activities were or what you took part in meetings and because they are non-recurring documents they are not documents that are being written on a very regular basis they require more of an introduction than interim reports interim reports are regular so they don't need to give introduction personal activity reports because they are not regular events so you need to give a little background for example if you have gone on a business visit then you need to give a little background of what was the purpose of that visit and then you and what kind of people you had to meet in your agenda and then you will tell what kind of work you did and what kind of meetings you had these are the informational reports now when we are talking about organizing analytical reports there are other types of reports the purpose of analytical reports is to convince the reader that the conclusions and recommendations that are developed in the text are valid through an analytical report you have to tell your reader that the conclusions and recommendations given in that report are correct and valid analytical reports are generally written to respond to social circumstances they are designed to guide the reader towards a decision as a result of the analytical report you will expect the reader to come to some form of a decision you will also a lot of the times through an analytical report try to change a person's perspective the reader's perspective as well regardless of which type of analytical report you are writing you will organize your ideas so that they will convince the readers of the soundness of your thinking try to structure and organize the ideas so that the readers convince the reader from your point of view in the examples that follow we describe the format and style of analytical reports which will give you an idea of how such reports are organized in the professional environment so let's have a look at some examples first there are justification reports these are internal reports to approve an investment of a project to allocate resources to a new project etc in justification reports you have to convince the top management to take a new step or make an investment a common format followed for justification reports is the use of recommendations to organize the report because you want the reader to take some action recommendations and they will it is those recommendations that are the main organizing principle of the report the structure is extremely efficient because it focuses the reader's attention immediately on what needs to be done foreign recommendations and through that they get a background along with the recommendations so it is effective because they immediately know what you are expecting from them and what you want them to take or there could be one form of analytical report could be a new business proposal to an outside client a client who is not involved in your company you are sending them a business proposal and these proposals attempt to get products, plans or projects accepted by outside businesses or government clients so here you are trying to persuade a client to get a business a simple formula followed by many professionals is basically in your business proposal to say here is my problem here is the solution here is what it will cost this is the problem this is the solution and this is the cost now you see if you want to be involved in it and you want them to be persuaded to feel feasible and to be involved in it they could also be troubleshooting reports whenever a problem exists someone must investigate it and propose a solution so by using reasons as main divisions in your outline you can gradually build a case for your conclusions and recommendations if you have any problem and you want to write a report then you will write why did the problem arise and then when you give your conclusions and recommendations you will have a background and you can support each of the reasons with evidence that you have collected during the analysis whatever you feel these are the specific problems to backup whatever evidence you have you will also present it remember there are analytical reports around a list of reasons that collectively support your main conclusions or recommendations is a natural approach to take as well if you feel there are many reasons which you will write and with the evidence you will support your main conclusions and recommendations then it is a natural way to write a report if there are many reasons which have a problem and there are only one or two or three solutions then you can write them together however some analytical reports are organized to highlight the pros and cons of a decision a lot of the times you will chunk all the reasons together and give all the recommendations together sometimes you will highlight pros and cons of a decision so then you will take recommendations separately and then you will also say what the pros would be of taking such a decision and what the negative aspects would be of taking such a decision as well and then let the reader come to their judgment when you are writing a report or a proposal you need to make it readable when the time comes to write a report you face the challenge in the most effective way to your audience obviously what you want to write is the most effective way to reach your audience so decisions about formality and structure affect the way your message will be received and understood by readers the issue of formality is closely related to considerations of format, length and organization if you know your readers reasonably well and if your memo or report with their approval you can generally adopt an informal tone if however you don't know your reader then you will adopt a more formal tone write informal tone reports in an informal style using I and U you will be direct just like how you talk to the reader if you know them and you are informal with them longer reports especially those dealing with controversial or complex information are traditionally handled in a more formal manner being formal means putting your readers at a distance and establishing an objective business-like relationship then you will not use I or U because if you don't know your readers personally and if you know them then this might be the case that the report is only for you those who are understanding will not read the same reader and also because the situation is more formal although the impersonal style has disadvantages this more formal style has disadvantages that it puts the readers at a distance use it if you feel that your readers expect it if you have a relationship with your readers or if your readers expect that the report is formally written then you will use the formal style you will feel that it is very cold or very distant now coming to the structure as you begin to write your readers have no idea of how various pieces of your report are linked together in your own mind maybe you have already written this but when your readers are reading that report then they don't know how all the sections are linked so your readers will see the report one page at a time so as you begin give the readers a roadmap of the report structure so that they can see how parts of your report are related to each other the roadmap could be in the form of a table of contents or it could be in the form of a brief introduction in the beginning saying what the report is about and how it will be structured basically so that your readers get an idea and as they keep moving the page they are not at loss or they are not turn the page blindly thinking what will I come across on the next page in short reports there is little danger of your readers getting lost Zairek Chutiti report if you have 4, 5, 8, 10 phones you don't have to give them a roadmap because they will find their way but as the length of the report increases so do the opportunities for readers to become confused and lose track of relationship amongst ideas so in longer reports you really need to give this roadmap four tools are particularly essential for giving readers an overall structure of your document keeping them on track when they read the first is the openings then there is heading and lists then smooth transitions and ending opening as I said in the beginning give a short introduction of how the report is structured headings and lists put your information under headings give lists to make your ideas clear make sure that there are smooth transitions between the different sections of your report and that there are links between them don't let the audience think that there is a jump and also the ending of the report should be clear and it should sum up let's have a look in detail as well of what we mean by all these a good opening accomplishes at least three things it introduces the subject of your report it indicates why the subject is important and it gives the reader a preview of main ideas in which they will be covered a heading is a brief title at the start of your report guiding the readers to the content of the section that follows a list is a scheme of words names or items arranged in a specific order using headings gives the readers a gist of your report then when we talk of transitions such phrases like to continue the analysis on the other hand additional concept etc are giving structural clues to your reader so that they know what is to follow and that you are going to continue about the same topic or that you are going to change the topic but it gives them a hint of what is to come later on in the text you can use additional details like moreover furthermore in addition besides etc these are also words which make for good transitional markers or you can show casual relationships by using words like therefore because accordingly thus hence by using these words you are showing a cause and effect relationship whereas by using words like moreover etc you are telling the reader that you are giving additional information some examples of words used for transition if you are going to show a condition then you will say though if if you are showing comparison then you will say words use words like similarly here again likewise in comparison still to illustrate a point you will say use words phrases like for example in particular in this case to give a summary you can use phrases like in brief in short to sum up to repeat a point you can say that is in other words as has been stated this is so that you can reinforce ideas now coming to the ending of your report in the ending as I said you will reemphasize the main idea or the main ideas in the ending research shows that endings or the final section of the report leaves a strong and lasting impression on the reader so make sure that your ending is very effective ending provides a final opportunity to emphasize the wholeness of your message it basically ties up the different sections of your report and it should leave the reader with a strong impact in this lecture you learnt to identify the qualities of good reports and proposals choose the proper length and format of your report and you also learnt how to decide when to use direct versus indirect order we also looked at organizing informational and analytical reports and the differences between them how to establish an appropriate degree of formality in the report and how the use of headings lists, transitions, openings and summaries guides the reader through the report with this we come to the end of this lecture until next time, Allah Hafiz