 Lecture 25, As-Salaam-Alaikum. Welcome to the Virgin University's course on business and technical communication. In today's lecture, we will look at general reports, we will look at the different varieties of report writing situations and how you readers will want to use the information that you provide. We will also look at the questions that readers ask most often and I will be showing you some sample outlines and we will look at a planning guide and some sample reports. We will also look at a general superstructure for reports. This will include the introduction, the method of obtaining data, or facts. Then the third section will be facts, the discussion, conclusion and recommendations. Reports come in many varieties such as you could have a 100 page report on a 7 month project to test a special method of venting high speed engines for using space vehicles or you could have a 12 page report based on library research to determine which long distance telephone company provides the most reliable service or you could even have a two paragraph report based upon a manufacturing company's manufacturing engineers visit to a new plant that is about to be put into service. Alternatively you could have a 200 page report addressed to the general public concerning the environmental impact of say mining in certain portions of public land in Balochistan. So it could be a report could be any of these and it could have the scope, the size and the purpose of any of these types of reports. So as you can see there is a big variety in the type of reports that you can write. It is not on only short reports or long reports which would be seen as formal reports even something as small as two paragraphs written by an individual would be seen to be a report. So as these examples suggest there are many ways. There are many ways in which reports are written and these are all different from each other. One person's report and the other person's report would also be very different because it will depend on many different factors even if the topic is the same there would be many other variables which will change one report from another. One such variable is the source of information. Different people use different sources of information depending on what the nature of the report is, what the purpose of the report is. You may base your report on information gathered from one or more of a wide variety of sources including your own research, reading and interviews. The sources of information that you will be collecting will not be available to you before you write a report. You will have to collect information from different places. Now your research can be done, you have conducted some interviews, you have done experiments, etc. You have done some reading. These are all different sources which you will combine and write in your report. Also the amount of time that you spend gathering your information also varies from person to person from report to report. It could be you could take just a few minutes to gather your information or you could take many years to gather your information. It all depends on the scope of your report. If there is a small report, then you may get information in just a few minutes. If there is a very long report which is spread out on hundreds of pages, then you may take many years to gather your information. This will vary situation to situation. Also the number of readers, your report may have only one reader or a variety of readers and many many readers. The number of readers would also determine the scope of your report, the size and the extent of your research. Linked to the number of readers, then is the kind of readers. Your readers may be people employed in your own organization or they may be employed in other organizations. In some situations you may address the general public. Different types of people who will read your report may be in your own organization. If there are people who work in your own organization, then your report may be less formal. If your readers work in any other organization, then your report may be more formal. If you are writing a report for the general public, then you will write it according to the general public. A very large audience will have to read it. Now we have talked about the number of readers and the type of readers. Along with that, we will also look at how your readers will want to put the information that they read. How will they want to put that into use? The information that they are getting, how will they use it? Despite all the differences that we saw amongst reports, almost all report writing situations have one factor in common. And that is, as I said, that your readers will want to put the information that you provide to some professional or practical use. Whatever information you give them, your readers will use it in some way. Either they will use it professionally, or they will use it practically. But if they use it in some way, then they will read the report. If they do not have any meaning, then they will not read it. For example, your readers may want to use your information to solve an organizational problem. Where typical goals are to increase efficiency and profit, for example. Or they might use it to solve a social problem. Where typical goals would be to improve the general health and welfare of groups of people. Or a personal problem where typical goals are to satisfy individual preferences and values. So the way your readers will use your communication is very important. And why is it important? It's important because obviously if you are aware of how your readers will be using your information, then that will determine to a large extent how you will present that information. When you have an idea of how your readers will use your information, then you will keep an eye on that information and present it to a large extent so that it is easy to use that information. When readers are trying to use the information that they find in your report, they usually ask the same basic questions. All readers have the same basic questions that arise in their minds. And this general superstructure for reports is a pattern that writers and readers have found to be successful for answering these basic questions. And we're going to have a look at these questions in a moment. But basically what you need to remember is that all readers will have a basic set of questions that they will be asking of themselves and of the material that they are reading. The typical questions that are asked by readers are questions like, what will be gained from this report? What will we get after reading this report? So you need to explain your communications relevance to the readers' interests, responsibilities and concerns. Since most people at work want to read only those communications that are directly useful to them. So if the reader feels that the communication is not useful to them or is not relevant to them, then they will not be interested in wasting their time reading it because they are busy people and they have a lot of other things to do. Then read reports which are irrelevant to them. So it's important that your report conveys to your reader the relevance and what the reader will gain from reading that report. Also, another question that all readers want to know is if the facts that are presented in the report, if they are reliable, so they will be asking are your facts reliable? Is this report reliable or not? Readers want to be certain that the facts you supply will provide a sound basis for the decisions or actions. Obviously, after reading your report, you also have this hope and readers are also reading this report that after reading that report they will take a decision or an action. It is important that they know that the facts that are written in the report are so solid and reliable that they can take a decision based on their basis. The fact is that the facts are not so solid and not so solid and if they take a decision based on their basis, then they may make a wrong decision. If this is the case, then obviously they will not trust the facts. So you have to be sure that your facts are reliable so that your reader can trust you and the reader can trust the reliability of your facts and the sources where you got the facts from. Another question that readers most often ask is what do you know that is useful to us? Readers only want you to tell them only those facts that they must know to do the job that lies before them, not everything that you know about your subject. You may know a lot about your subject but the reader only needs that information that is in their interest. They do not want you to tell them everything about your subject. The purpose of the report is not to impress the readers with your knowledge but to provide the reader with key, concise information that is of use to them, to the reader. If you tell all your knowledge in the report but there is not even a single part of the reader's work then that report is useless for the reader. It is about wasting their time. Another basic question is how do you interpret those facts from our point of view? The readers will want to know that whatever facts you have collected, what is your interpretation from the reader's point of view? Keeping in mind the reader's need, keeping in mind what your audience needs to know. How have you interpreted those facts? Keeping the audience's main goals in mind. You have to remember that facts standing alone are meaningless and to give facts meaning people must interpret them by pointing out relationships or patterns amongst them. Whatever facts you collect, whether there are relationships or patterns between them, you have to point out them and that will be the interpretation of those facts. Only the fact of knowing facts will be meaningless. For example, if you say the sales figures show a rising demand for two products but not for two other products. This way you are showing a relationship between the two products through the sales figures. If you just list the sales figures, there is no interpretation. You are just listing the facts saying there are so many of this type of products sold in 99, so many sold in 2000, 2001, etc. but you are not showing any relationship between them. So you are not doing any interpretation of those facts and you are leaving it to the reader to interpret the fact and that is not what the reader wants. The idea of a report is that you are going to interpret the fact you are going to use your brain keeping in mind the purpose that the reader has for reading your report and then give an interpretation, give some kind of a correlation between different items. Usually your readers will want you to make these interpretations rather than leave the readers to work them out because obviously the report is reading that you should interpret it and you should tell them the interpretations. Another question that readers will most likely ask is how are these facts significant to us? Whatever facts you have given them, whatever you have said, why do you think that this is necessary for us? Why are you telling us this? It is important that you keep this report in mind that what is necessary for the audience and that they will be able to understand the importance of it. Readers generally want you to go beyond an interpretation of the facts to explain what the facts mean in terms of the reader's responsibilities, interests or goals. If you have already told them the facts, you have also interpreted them. Now you have to tell them what are the repercussions and what are the repercussions. Due to this interpretation, what the audience has to do, what are the reader's responsibilities, according to their interests and goals. How does this interpretation match their interests and goals? For example, if you say the demand for one product falls during this season every year, though not quite this sharply, the falling demand for the other may signal that the product is no longer competitive. Now with this type of interpretation discussion, you are telling the reader that the demand that is decreasing, is showing that this product is not yet competitive. So you are giving the reader a certain amount of bread because you are interpreting the facts and showing the reader that it relates to them. What does this interpretation mean in real life terms? Another commonly asked question is what do you think we should do? Readers also want to know what they should do in the future. Because you as a report writer would have studied all the facts in detail. Your readers will often want you to tell them what action you think they should take because they are looking at you as the expert now in that field since you have done all the research and you probably know more about that area than they do. Because obviously you did all the research to write that report. So you know more and they want you to tell them what action they should take on the basis of all these things. For example, you should continue to produce the first product but monitor its future sales closely. You should find a way to improve the second product or else quit producing it. This type of recommendation is very important in your report. Obviously whatever your report is about is about that thing because this is what tells the reader what they should do. So these six questions are very general. In fact, for large reports people need to take hundreds, even thousands of pages to answer them. These are the six key questions that need to be answered in a good report. And the reason that people ask these questions and the reason that they are important is because business people seek answers to these basic questions by asking multitude of more specific subsidiary questions. So although these are just six questions but answering them can be very specific and very long. It can take up to hundreds of pages because these questions are not only six questions. There are many more questions linked to each question that need to be answered. Now let's have a look at the general superstructure of reports. What is their structure? And it is obvious that there will be more divisions within that structure depending on the purpose and the scope, the time involved and the type of readership that is there for that report. But the general superstructure of reports contains six elements and these six elements correspond to each of the six questions that we just looked at. Every report will have an introduction a section which talks about the method of obtaining data or the method of obtaining facts. Then there will be a section of on facts, a discussion, a conclusion and a section on recommendations as we just looked at earlier on in this lecture. In some brief reports, for example, the writers move to a paragraph in which the facts and conclusions are tweeted together. It is not necessary that all these sections are separate but all of these things will be addressed in one report. If there is a small report, then the writers should start with the recommendations. After that, in one paragraph the facts and conclusions should be dealt with together and then they may state of information in a concluding single sentence paragraph. Other people sometimes present two or more of the six elements under a single heading. For instance, they may include in their introduction information about how they obtain their facts and they frequently present and interpret their facts in a single section of their report. So, although all these things will be looked at, they may be combined together, not assumed together but they will be addressed. As we have seen, in the introduction this information can be given about how the data facts are collected and then interpretation or presentation of facts can also be given. In the introduction of a report, you answer your readers' question what will we gain by reading your report? When we talked about that the readers ask basic questions from their report and the main question was what will we gain by reading this report? The answer to this question should be given to the reader in the introduction. Obviously, in the beginning you will get the answer to what you will get from this report. Not that the answer is given by the reader. Consider, for instance, the first sentence of a report written by Ayesha who is an employee of a university's fundraising office and Ayesha was asked to investigate the university's facilities and programs in horseback riding. We will take an example of Ayesha who works in a university and has a fundraising program in her office and specifically was asked to write a report and investigate the university's facilities and programs regarding horseback riding. Because the reader, Sarwar, had assigned her to prepare that report she could tell him what he would gain by simply reminding him why he had asked her to write the report. Sarwar, for instance, who asked Ayesha to write the report Ayesha, in her report in the beginning, reminded Sarwar that Sarwar had asked this report and what he wanted from this report. In this way, she reminded him why it is important to read this report and what he would gain from it. She said this, did this by writing a sentence like the report I present the information you wanted to have before deciding whether to place the new university's tables on next year's list of major funding drives. In longer reports, your explanation of the relevance of the report to your readers may take many pages in which you will tell such things as what problem your report will help to solve what activities you performed solving that problem and how your audience can apply your information in their own effort towards solving that problem. You can also tell in longer reports what problems will be solved from your report and what activities you did and how this problem will be solved and then what your readers will do which will solve the problem also besides telling your readers what your communication offers them your introduction may serve many other functions and the most important of these functions is to tell the readers the main points of the report. The most important point of the introduction is to tell the readers what you will get from the report. The second point is to tell the readers what is the main point of the report and what is the main idea. In most reports your main point will be your major conclusions and recommendations. What you want to take are your main points because the crux of your report and your argument will be in those recommendations and conclusions. You should save a full discussion however of these topics for the sections devoted to them at the end of your report. It is not that you have to give all the conclusions and recommendations in the introduction but in the introduction you will definitely give them an answer and you will tell them what are your main recommendations and main conclusions. Your readers will appreciate this brief summary of the full discussion perhaps even in a sentence or two in your introduction it does not need to be very long but your audience will appreciate this brief summary a brief note to them and come to the end of the report. Let's go back to the example of Ayesha the university employee writing a report about the stables and see how she provided such a summary in the second, third and fourth sentences of her horseback riding report. The first sentence we saw in which she told the purpose of the report why the report was written. She reminded everyone what decision she was making. Now in the second, third and fourth sentences she is giving a summary of her conclusions and recommendations. She says overall it would seem that the stables would make a good fundraising project because of the strength of the current programs offered there, the conditions of the current facilities and the existence of a loyal core of alumni who use the facilities while undergraduates. The fundraising should focus on the construction of a new barn costing $125,000 an addition $150,000 could be sought for a much needed arena and classroom. But I recommend that this construction be saved for a future fundraising drive. As you have seen in the three sentences she gave her conclusions and in the last sentence she also gave recommendations that the construction she has given a conclusion that this construction should be funded again while we can do the rest now. And in brief reports for example, one page memos, a statement of your main points may even replace the conclusions and recommendations that would otherwise appear at the end. Obviously if there is a small report on one page for example there will be no evidence that you say the main point, then you will do the conclusions recommendations and then in the end of the same page you will do the conclusions and recommendations and there is such a small report that the reader will read it immediately. So instead of that just state the main point and the reader will get the conclusions and recommendations as soon as possible. Also you need to remember that it is very important that your main point is stated at the beginning five other important functions that an introduction may serve are to tell you how the report is organized outlining its scope and encouraging openness to your message and they will also provide background information that the reader will need in order to understand the rest of your report. Now these five functions are the talking about the method of obtaining facts the facts, discussion, conclusions, recommendations as we saw in the first list we talked about the introduction till here. Now the rest of the sections let's look at them. The method of obtaining facts in a report your discussion of your model of obtaining your facts can serve a wide variety of purposes. Report readers want to assess the reliability of the facts you present your discussion of your method tells them how and where you got your facts when one purpose of telling your model how you obtained the facts is that the reader will know how reliable your sources are how reliable your method is your discussion of those things whether it is correct or not and it will also tell them where and how you got your facts and how you got them. It also suggests to your readers how they can gain additional information on the same subject. Obviously you have not written all the information about that subject in your report but when you will discuss how we obtained this information then if there are any readers who want to get more information about that topic then they can do the same. If you get more information through reading for example you direct your readers to those sources that you read if you obtained your information through an experiment survey or any other special technique your account of your method may help others design similar projects. So the way you did the same way the person who will can accept further information further material can take. In her investigation of the university stables Ayesha gathered her information through interviews she reported her method in the following way Ayesha used the interviews and she told them that she used the interviews she said or she wrote I obtained the information given below by the university stables manager also at last month's alumni weekend I spoke with a half dozen alumni interested in their writing programs So by including these couple of sentences in her report Ayesha has told the reader that if you want more information this is where to go to this is how to go about it and also sometimes it also helps the reader to know where the information is from because if say the sources a reader feels that these Ayesha could have consulted many other sources then that then shows that the report might not be very reliable because Ayesha just talked to two sources alumni and the stable manager but there were many many other people that she could have talked to maybe current students which were a large body of people who could influence the decision so if the report is missing out on a substantial source then that also becomes apparent to the reader as a check of reliability of the factors now this is how you discussed the facts and their sources now let's have a look at the facts themselves your facts are the individual pieces of evidence that underlie and support your conclusions and recommendations if your report like Ayesha's is based upon interviews your facts are the things people told you if your report is based upon laboratory, field or library research then your facts are the verifiable pieces of information that you gathered obviously interviews can't be verified the way you took something from a library or something in a book or an experiment can be verified because when there is a repeat you will get that same thing or if you have taken information from a book then you will get the same information but in the interview there is a lot of chance that if you ask the same questions from those people then maybe they will give you different answers so different sources of facts have different types of meanings as far as the report is concerned and some facts are verifiable and some are not verifiable if your report is based upon your efforts to design a new product procedure or systems then your facts are the various aspects of the thing you designed or created to present your facts in a section of their own or you may combine your presentation of your facts with your discussion of them you can discuss your facts in a different section and if you want then you can combine the facts in one section and reach the audience taken alone facts mean nothing they are a table of data a series of isolated observations or pieces of information without meaning they should never be presented on their own without a discussion either attached to them or intermingled with them or following them if you take out the discussion from the report and present only facts and we have told the facts now we don't need any further explanation or discussion there are no facts alone they are just isolated pieces of information until you discuss them and don't put any interpretation on them so an essential element of every report that you prepare will be your discussion of the facts in which you interpret the facts in a way which is significant to your research whatever facts you have seen the facts you have uncovered you will interpret them in a way which will be important to your research and your research sometimes writers have trouble distinguishing between a presentation of the facts and the discussion of these facts let's have a look at an example that will help you in making this distinction clear imagine that you observe that when the temperature on the floor of your factory is 65 degrees fahrenheit workers produce 3% rejected parts when it is 70 degrees fahrenheit they produce 4% rejected parts when it is 75 degrees fahrenheit they produce 4.5% rejected parts and when it is 80 fahrenheit they produce 7% rejected parts if you were to say as the temperature rises above 70 degrees fahrenheit so does the percentage of rejected parts you would be interpreting those facts if however you had you just list the temperatures and the corresponding number of rejected parts or percentage of rejected parts that are produced then you would just be listing the facts but when you write a type of sentence as the temperature rises above 70 degrees so too does the percentage of rejected parts you are making it easier for the reader to look at the correlation between the rise of temperature and the increase in the amount of rejected parts being produced and of course in many larger reports larger reports you would be dealing with much larger and more complicated sets of facts that would require much more sophisticated and extended interpretation but this is just an example so that to give you an idea what facts are alone what are their interpretations as far as the discussion is concerned in many of the communications that you write in many of the reports that you write you will weave your discussion of the facts together with your presentation of the facts it is not necessary that you have presented the facts and then you have discussed them or you have written a sentence about them as we have said the discussion of facts and your discussion will be with each other in such situations the interpretations often serve as the topic sentences for paragraphs first you will give interpretation in many cases which will be the topic sentence of a paragraph and then you will present facts let's have a look at a paragraph in which Aisha our person working in what we looked at mixes her facts and discussion the interpretation is in the form of a topic sentence where she says the university's horseback riding courses have grown substantially in recent years due largely to the enthusiastic and effective leadership of Mr. Junaid who took over as table manager five years ago till here Mr. Junaid till to tell Mr. Junaid due to the enthusiastic leadership the university's horseback riding courses have become more popular this was the interpretation then he told Mr. Junaid who he was and now she talks of the facts when Mr. Junaid arrived the university offered three courses beginning intermediate and advanced riding since then two new courses have been added one in mounted instruction and one in the training of horses which no one can dispute when Mr. Junaid joined there were three courses and now two more courses have been added and the interpretation on the basis of these facts that these courses have been added because popularity has increased it has been said in the beginning now whether you integrate your presentation and discussion together of the facts or you treat the two separately it is important for you to remember that your readers count upon you to select the facts that are relevant to them we have already said that whatever information you give will be relevant to your readers so whatever facts you choose to include in your report and whatever facts you choose to interpret you have to make sure that they are relevant to your readers because the reader is trusting you to tell them that they are relevant to them not things that are irrelevant and the reader is not also expecting you to hide things from them which may be relevant so it is your duty to tell them all that you have found that you feel would be relevant to them and tell it as it really is they also count on you to discuss these facts in a way that is meaningful to them interpret these facts read that discussion it is easy for them to make decisions it is easy for them to work it is also beneficial for them so this was the discussion of facts and their discussions now let's come to the conclusions like interpretations conclusions are general statements based on your facts we have talked about that interpretations are based on your facts similarly conclusions are based on your facts however conclusions focus not simply on interpreting the facts but on answering the reader's question of how are these facts significant to us we have talked about that these facts are important for us and this is what the conclusion tells them this is what it focuses on so there is a difference between the conclusion and the interpretation or the discussion the conclusion tells the readers how the facts are important why is the discussion important to them coming back to Aisha in her report Aisha provided many paragraphs of information about the university writing programs the state of the current stable facilities and the likely interest amongst alumni in contributing money for the new stable facilities Aisha's reader's server might ask but what exactly does all that mean in terms of my decision about whether to start a fundraising project for the stables Aisha provided all the information about how the university writing programs are stable the current situation the facilities the old students whether they are interested or not in the new stables however the readers might also think that all these things are fine but how should I interpret this or what you have said that the interest has increased how important is this and what does this mean for me what should I do what should I do or not so obviously Aisha will not wait for this question but she will anticipate and answer this question before it is asked and she did this by offering the following conclusions in conclusion my investigation indicates that the university's writing programs could benefit substantially from a fundraising effort however the appeal of such a program will be limited primarily to the very supportive alumni who use the university stables while students so as you see in the conclusion Aisha actually tells the reader what she thinks the reader should do if there are any limitations to her solution to her conclusion she also points those out she says we should do this but maybe in this way one enemy is that the alumni will only contribute however both the students pointed out now coming to recommendations just as conclusions grow out of interpretations of the facts recommendations grow out of conclusions this is a cycle the interpretation of facts is based on conclusions and based on conclusions recommendations are given the recommendations answer the reader's question of if your conclusions are valid what should we do if your conclusions are valid if you think this is how it should be what should we do depending on many factors including the number and complexity of the things that you are recommending you may state your recommendations in a single sentence or in many pages it depends on how complex your conclusions are it depends on how complex the issues are you can help your readers immensely by stating your major recommendations as a few words or just a few sentences and this may be the only time that you present them on the other hand if your communication is long or if a full discussion of your recommendations requires a lot of space then you can summarize your recommendations generally at the beginning of your report and then treat them more extensively at the end if you feel that your report is very long and there is a long section of recommendations then you can give a summary of it in the beginning and then you can write the entire section later this is what Aisha did that she summarized her recommendations in two sentences if you remember when we read the introduction of Aisha she told her recommendations that she should have new programs or fund raising and then she presented and explained the recommendations in three paragraphs at the end of the report now because the recommendations were long she summarized them early on as well she placed the recommendations under the heading conclusions and recommendations so she put conclusions and recommendations together although readers usually want recommendations in reports you may encounter some situations in which you will not want to include them that might happen for instance in either of the two situations which follow situation one could be where the decision being made is clearly beyond your competence and you have been asked to provide a small part of information that your readers need to make the decision if you are asked to provide a small amount of information and the rest of the information is being collected and if you have to give recommendations then you will not give recommendations you will only give your information and your report and the recommendations may be from senior people who will decide in this field or another situation could be where you are working in a situation where the responsibility for making recommendations belongs to your boss or other people you might not have the responsibility of doing it one is that you do not have much of the information which you can provide based on which you can give and the other is that but your place is not that you have to give your recommendations then you will not write your recommendations nevertheless in the usual situation your recommendations will be expected or at least welcomed if you are uncertain about whether to provide recommendations ask your boss or the person who asked you to report say you have been asked to report check I have written my recommendations or you only need the facts and interpretation and a conclusion and I have kept my ideas with me so ask if the person who asked you to report say you should give your recommendations then you should give if you have doubts but generally recommendations are expected do not omit recommendations out of shyness or because you are guessing that is what is wanted the general rule would be give recommendations unless you are asked not to give them or unless you are unsure if you are unsure check now let's briefly talk about summaries as well the summary of your report the preceding section concentrated on the elements of the best reports written on the job many longer reports share another feature they are preceded by a separate summary of the report overall a summary which is given before the report and it is very common in long reports these summaries are often called executive summaries because they are usually addressed to the decision makers executive summaries usually are meant for people who are executives as the name suggests they are busy people and they might not have the time to read the whole report so you give an executive summary to help them decide whether they want to read it or not and to give them an idea of what is to be covered in the report in this lecture we looked at the different varieties of report writing situations we looked at how your readers will want to use the information that you provide for your questions readers are most likely to ask we also looked at some sample outlines and some sample reports and a planning guide or how to plan our reports we also looked at a general superstructure for reports which included the introduction the method of obtaining data facts, the facts discussion, conclusion and recommendations if you have any questions please feel free to contact us about the assignments please feel free to contact us I will see you next time until then Allah Hafiz