Students usually get anxious about how to write a report when they get assigned for the first time. Because report writing seems the work of a bussiness man.
However, even, in bussiness, people struggle with writing a good report. Besides, the most typical confusions students encounter are the writing style, what language to use, length and much more.
This page aims to disentangle a number of such questions. Thus, you will not only learn how to write a report but also get some tips and techniques to write an impressive report.
What is a Report?
A report is a special form of writing that is structured while examining an event or an issue that has happened in a physical sense.
Moreover, reports may contain some or all of the following elements:
- It may be a description of an event or situation.
- Interpretation about an event or affairs pertaining to that event.
- An analysis of the facts or the results of your research.
- Discussion of the possible outcomes of any event or action.
- And your recommendations on a course of action.
But while writing a report about geographical topic or issue, check out if there are any special rules about report writing in your area or state.
For instance, For example, within the UK several government departments have define structures for reports that must be followed strictly.
However, the length of a report may vary from content to content, tutor to tutor, and organization to organization. Thus, it would be wise to learn how long should your report be before you start writing.
Essays Writing VS Report Writing
Most people usually confuse writing a report by writing an essay. But report writing is a whole different story. Reports are generally written for scientific, bussiness, and technical purposes.
Whereas we write essays for academic purposes.
Furthermore, essays are used to establish arguments and reasoning. Reports, on the other hand, analyze facts. So a report may be short, well-structured and to the point because it is written for a specific purpose and audience.
And reports, usually, are used to analyze the properties and downsides of a topic while suggesting further recommendations.
Sections and list
A report is intended to guide individuals through the knowledge in an exceedingly structured means, however additionally to alter them to search out the knowledge that they require quickly and simply.
Reports sometimes, therefore, have numbered sections and subsections, and a transparent and full contents page listing every heading. It follows that the page list is vital.
Modern word processors have options to feature tables of contents (ToC) and page numbers moreover as titled headings; you ought to benefit of those as they update mechanically as you edit your report, moving, adding or deleting sections.
Report Writing – How to Write a Report?
Now that we have learned what is a report and how important it is, it is the perfect time to start learning how to write a report step by step.
Step 1: Recognize Your Audience
Once you get assigned, you should find out your audience before you start writing your report. Because recognizing your audience is essential.
Thus, read the instruction thoroughly where there is a high possibility of finding out who you are preparing the report for. If not, you can ask your professor. All in all, you should know who you are writing for and why.
Step 2: Keep Important Instructions in Mind
Firstly, during your designing and writing, make certain that you just keep your audience in mind: WHO you are writing for, and why you are writing?
All your reasoning must be targeted on that.
Secondly, as you develop your report, try to organize your work into sections
Moreover, make sure that you just keep track of your references, particularly for tutorial work. Though referencing may not be very strict, you would still want to go according to it. Therefore, it’s useful to keep track of your sources of knowledge.
Step 3. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a vital step for any effective piece of writing. So before you start writing your report, you should do some homework. Most importantly, brainstorming helps you decide on the structure of your report.
To brainstorm, take a pen and paper, and write down whatever strikes your brain. Besides, asking the following questions may help you.
- What information do I need?
- Do I need any reading to do?
- what books or articles do I need?
- Do I need to contact anyone or at least the library for any background reading or information?
- Do I need to interview anyone?
- How much time does my report require
- How can I reach my objects in minimum time?
Step 4. Decide the Structure of a Report
There is no doubt that the structure of your report is of extreme importance to guide your reader through the course of your thinking and facts that you are trying to provide them.
Thus, it is recommended to you that you should take your time to construct a powerful structure.
Nevertheless. your report may contain the followings:
- An outline
- Introduction
- Body of your report
- conclusion
Step 5. Create an Outline
The outline is important! Very important, to be honest. Because it helps you construct and organize your ideas in a thoughtful flow. Moreover, outlines help you pick up important and relevant information during actually writing your report with ease. So, making an outline first allows you to build a steady foundation in reality.
However, it ought to not be over 0.5% of a page to a page longer.
Step 6. Write the Introduction
The introduction sets out what you intend to mention and provides a short outline. It ought to additionally bit shortly on your conclusions.
Step 7. Report the Main Body
The main body of the report ought to be rigorously structured that should be able to lead the reader through your report with ease.
So, you should split it into sections and numbered sub-headings. But your sentences should be brief and straight forward. Because beating around the bush may cause your reader to get bored and leave reading.
Besides, it should conjointly embrace experimental results. And all the sentences that you just write ought to be connected back to the previous ones.
Furthermore, if it’s not relevant, leave it out.
Step 8. Compose the Conclusion
The conclusion sets out what conclusions you draw from the knowledge, as well as any experimental results. it should embrace recommendations, or these could also be enclosed in a separate section.
A Word on the Genre
When writing a report, your aim ought to be completely clear. Above all, it ought to be simple and informative, even to somebody with very little information on the topic space.
Therefore, you should use plain text, easy English and most importantly shorter words and phrases.
However, if using difficult language is compulsory, you should justify every word you use. So, be careful while building your sentences.
Consider your audience. If the report is intended to be written for a selected person, check whether or not you ought to be writing it to ‘You’ or maybe within the person to employment role: For instance: ‘The Chief govt could prefer to consider…’, or ‘The minister is usually recommended to agree…’.
Step 9. Finally, Revise!
As with any assignment or formal piece of writing, your work can take pleasure in being scanned all over again and altered ruthlessly for sense and magnificence.
Pay explicit attention as to whether all the knowledge that you just have enclosed has relevance. Moreover, you should bear in mind to envision tenses, that person you’ve got written in, synchronic linguistics and orthography.
For an educational assignment, ensure that you just have documented it effectively and properly. As always, certify you’ve got not unknowingly or deliberately plagiarized or traced something while not acknowledging it.
Moreover, your paper should be revised a couple of times to see whether or not there are any corrections to be made. You can check your paper for the following elements:
- Grammar and spelling
- Facts and figures
- References
- The correctness of the provided data
- Graphs, diagrams, and format
- The given the guidelines
- Symbols, terms, and abbreviations