Chapter 29: Report and Proposal Basics

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Chapter 29 Report and Proposal Basics

• These are often the heavy lifting documents in
  workplace writing. Usually involves analyzing
  situations instead of just reporting on them.

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Writing successful Reports and Proposals

• Know your assignment
• What is your goal?
• Just sharing facts or offering recommendations?
• Know your audience
• Your readers needs
• Your readers knowledge of the subject
• How will reader use it?
• Research the topic
• Objectively look at all sides

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• 4. Organize for understanding (3 parts)
• Intro What its about (summary)
• Findings What are the details?
• Key points Whats the bottom line?
• 5. Be formal when necessary, never stiff
• Generally, the less familiar your reader and the
  longer your report, the more formal it should be.
• Formal doesnt mean impersonal. Be energetic,
  natural, humorous, and matter-of-fact

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• 6. Design for clarity, access, and impact
• Use visuals graphs, charts, photos, etc.
• White space, boldface, italics, and underlining
• Tabs or chapters
• 7. Rely on models and templates
• Use models in book or provided by company
• 8. Remember the big picture
• Avoid getting sidetracked with unrelated issues

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Types of Reports

• Short Reports
• Incident Accident, breakdown, error
• Investigative lab, experiment, inspection
• Periodic Monthly, weekly, department
• Progress Initial, follow-up
• Trip or call sales trip, conference

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• Major Reports
• Long, formal, or annual reports
• Proposals
• Suggestions, grants, sales, bids

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Writing Activity 2 p.484

• Write a report to me about what you have learned
  so far and still hope to accomplish or work more
  on.
• Intro What its about (preview)
• Body What you have learned and what you still
  hope to accomplish(2 paragraphs)
• Conclusion brief summary of key points

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Chapter 30 Writing Short Reports

• These documents carry back to readers the basic
  information they need to keep track of work and
  keep it moving.

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Your Job When Writing a Report Is To

1. Study the topic
2. Analyze it
3. Carry back to your readers the details of your
   analysis

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Short Reports Help Readers With Tasks Such As

• Creating a record for activities
• Documenting details related to an incident,
  project, or study
• Answering questions about what is happening in
  the company
• Checking results of work, production, etc.
• Evaluating options and making decisions

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Goals of Reports

• Incident Reports
• Provide accurate details about and clear analysis
  of an incident, breakdown, etc.
• Investigative Reports
• Find, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and report
  facts that will help your readers understand an
  issue and perhaps take effective action.

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• Periodic Reports
• Record accurately and promptly the activities and
  outcomes of a particular time period.
• Progress Reports
• Inform readers about how a project is
  progressing. Often aims to resolve or identify
  problems or difficulties
• Trip/Call Reports
• Record the purpose of the visit/conversation and
  state what was accomplished. Contacts made, sales
  generated, etc.

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Writing Activity 1 p.508

• Based on your experiences in the workplace
  develop one of the following reports
• Incident report
• Investigative report
• Progress report
• Trip/Call report
• Each report has an organization guideline located
  immediately before the example