Study Skills

Report Writing

Businesses are increasingly demanding well-produced documentation with a specific corporate style. In order to fit in with this trend, you should ensure that all reports submitted on your course meet the following requirements:

Front Page - This will include title, to, from, date, and perhaps a diagram.

Contents - This is possibly the last thing you will complete.

(Optional - Executive Summary - Bullet-pointed summary of whole report on one page.)

At this point you will use a clear numbering system - here is a suggested way:

1.0 Introduction - this section will be an overview of the task set and what you intend to cover (sometimes you may have to use Terms of Reference).

2.0 Findings - Within this main body of the report there will be numbered sections with emboldened or underlined headings (e.g. 2.1 Location, 2.2 Production, 2.3 Marketing, etc). You should also embolden or underline sub-headings; it is rare in a report to have a page with no numbered or headed sections in it.

3.0 Conclusion - A summary of your main findings.

4.0 Recommendations - If required.

References - In the past this was referred to as a bibliography - use the Harvard referencing system and list all Web sites.

Appendices - Graphs, tables, etc, should be within the Findings section if they need to be looked at whilst reading the text; appendices should only include information that may possibly be referred to out of interest or is required as evidence.

All graphs, charts, figures, quotations, must be clearly referenced beside or beneath. Where possible they should not be on separate pages but should be incorporated within the text - inserting them into a text box can often make this easier.

Other Stylistic Points

Reports tend to be in sans-serif font - use Tahoma or Arial 12 Point. Limited use of italics, different font, or 10 and 14 point can be effective but should be used sparsely.

Within page set-up, margins should be: 2, 2, 2.5, 2. All text should be justified. Paragraphs should be blocked without indentations. Tabs and/or bullet points are a useful technique for making things stand out. You should think about how many empty lines you have between headings and sections.

Avoid 'I' - phrases like 'I think' are not appropriate, use 'this report aims to' or 'the evidence suggests'. Also avoid 'can't', 'don't', etc. Spell-check and proof-read your work.

It is vital that your report looks good and has a professional feel.