TEAM 1 PGDM 12’14

Anju

Aishwarya

Neeru

Amit

Ajay

BASICS OF REPORT WRITING

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

REPORT WRITING - MEANING

WHAT IS A REPORT ?

Assessment of a situation or results from data analysis

Precise, concise and succinct (to the point)

Tightly focused

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

WHAT IS A REPORT?

A document in which a given problem is examined, for the

purpose of conveying information & findings, putting

forward ideas first & sometimes making recommendations.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Preparation before writing:

Define the problem, purpose, scope and ask: What is wanted?

How much?

Why?

When?

This will determine the purpose that can be written in one clear

statement.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Determining the report’s scope

Common fault of many reports - making the scope of a

report too general or too vague

After choosing the subject is to narrow the scope to the

report’s length

Scope is determined by the factors you will study

Limit amount of information to the most needed and most

important factors

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

STEPS FOR WRITING REPORTS….. Make an initial plan

Locate your information and take notes

Prepare the first draft

Evaluate your draft carefully

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

THE OBJECTIVE…

It defines the scope of our investigation

Identify the purpose

To inform

To convince

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Planning your report

How much time do you have to write the report?

How can your work be divided into stages?

Set yourself deadlines for the various stages?

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Collecting information

What is the information you need?

Where do you find it?

Survey

Organizations

Online

Publications

How much do you need?

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Organizing Information

Discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information

Sort/ organize information under main ideas/ details

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Analyse your information

After gathering info, you need to analyse it

The purpose of the analysis is to make sense objectively, out

of the information you have gathered

Avoid personal bias of any kind entering into analysis

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Characteristics of report

Reader-centered beginning and ending

Objectivity

Time consistency

Present

Past

Transition

Interest

Personal and impersonal writing

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Wording of Headings

Parallel Construction: Equal level headings should be in the

same grammatical format—for example, all noun phrases, all

sentences, or all truncated (headline-style) sentences.

Conciseness in Wording: Headings should be as short as

possible while still conveying clear meaning

Variety of Expression: Replace monotonous repetitions

of words in topic headings with a variety of words.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Write the Report

Put the report in context with your beginning and ending.

Be objective.

Believability

Impersonal vs. personal writing

Maintain a consistent time viewpoint.

Use smooth transitions.

Maintain interest.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Beginnings and Endings

A good beginning . . .

states the subject of the report

reveals what kind of data it is based upon

indicates its likely significance to the reader

A good ending . . .

may summarize; or summarize and interpret; or summarize,

interpret, and recommend—depending on the reader

must make the informational “gist” clear

must make the contents’ significance clear

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Impersonal v/s Personal Styles

Impersonal With the Jones project completed, work now is continuing

on the next annual report, with a special focus on the new

high-temperature technique.

Personal During the first week of the period, I was completing the

Jones project. I now am writing a description of the new

high-temperature technique for the next annual report.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Contd..

Impersonal The current period has been devoted to training on the use of

the new equipment.

Personal I have spent the current period getting trained on using the

new equipment.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Maintain Logic and Consistency

in Time Viewpoint

Consistent Present

Since Dixie Cola is produced and distributed in the south,

there is little difficulty in establishing its identity in that

region.

Strong markets are designated as those that require little or

no local adaptation of commercials. Mississippi, Louisiana,

and Alabama fall in that category.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Contd..

Consistent Past

Since Dixie Cola was produced and distributed in the South,

there was little difficulty in establishing its identity in that

region.

Strong markets were designated as those that required little

or no logical adaptation of commercials. Mississippi,

Louisiana, and Alabama fell in that category.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Need for transition

Transition means “bridging across”

Transitions are used to connect the parts of the report

For connecting large parts, transition sentences may be used

Transitional words show relationships between lesser parts

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Transitions are Bridges for Moving the

Reader Through Your Report

Idea Idea Idea

Transition Transition

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Language Present facts as they are

Paragraph length about 7 type written lines

All paragraphs should have topic sentence as the opening line even if there is a heading

Apply the seven Cs

Sentences averaging 16-20 words

Concrete nouns

Few adverbs & adjectives

Generally written in past tense

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Maintaining interest

Interesting writing is necessary for good communication

Attention should be on main information

Use concrete words and active-voice verbs

Avoid rubber stamp jargon

Select words carefully.

Watch the rhythm of expression.

Stress content over techniques.

Be complete without using more words than necessary.

Era Business School

Ajay K Raina

Thank You