Writing Reports

There are two basic formats or approaches for writing reports.

Direct Approach

The direct approach, in which recommendations come first, is the up-front or psychological approach. This format is often used in short reports and when recommendations are more-or-less straightforward.

Indirect Approach

Typically, the longer, more formal report has the following parts:

• Cover: Includes the name of the organization, division and the title of the report.
• Letter of Transmittal: Explains how, why, and under what circumstances the report was prepared.
• Title Page: Title of the report, who the report was prepared for (name and title of recipient), author’s name, and date.
• Synopsis or Executive Summary: An informative summary covering purpose as well as key findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
• Table of Contents: Contains main divisions with page numbers.
• List of Illustrations: Needed only if there are many illustrations and graphs.
• Introduction: Includes whatever the reader needs in order to understand the report (background, scope and limitations, details about your approach or method, criteria used in making your evaluation).
• Body/Discussion
• Summary
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Appendix: May include statistics, tables, and other information of interest to some readers, but would not be appropriate in the body of the report.
• Very extensive reports may also contain footnotes and a bibliography.

 For more information on writing reports please visit our writing reports course.