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Writing a Report: An Inevitable Part of Professional Activity
We face such assignment as writing a report yet at school: book report is a student’s first opportunity to be in the role of a report writer. However, if you are a student, we offer you not to hurry with saying “goodbye” to report writing: necessity to write a report is not limited by studying. Let us give some general notions about writing a report as a part of one’s professional responsibilities.
Report writing is widespread in many fields, such as business, medicine, science, criminology. Besides, implementation of any project implies writing progress reports. In some fields, there are even several report types. For example, business report writing includes the following types of reports:
Whatever a field of writing a report is, its purpose is to summarize results of past work and consequences of past events so that this information can be used in the present and in the future for decision making. Let us give you a notion about peculiarities of writing a report in different professional fields.
Writing a Report: Structure
Report structure may somewhat differ depending on the field, purpose and content. However, it is possible to outline a general structure often taking place in report writing:
- Cover Sheet
- Title Page
- Letter of Transmittal (Acknowledgements)
- Table of Contents
- Summary
- Main Body
- Introduction
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Recommendations (Proposal)
- Bibliography
- Appendices
When writing a report, you may divide body text by means of subheadings so that it is more convenient for a reader to understand your information.
Writing a Report: Language
Writing a report requires using a language which somewhat differs from that used in academic writing. Report writing implies using plain language and constructing sentences which are not too long. However, may principles kept in academic writing also take place: formal style, no colloquialisms et al.
