Rules for Writing
Business documents such as reports, proposals and plans should:
- Be easy to read
- Be well structured
- Provide information to the reader in a clear and concise way
- Provide information that is reliable and capable of being substantiated
- Not plagiarise other people’s work
- Conform to expected standards of presentation
The following suggestions may assist you to meet the above criteria.
Easy to read
Your reports readability will improve if you:
- Use short, well-constructed sentences. Sentences over 15 words probably should be split into two or more sentences.
- Utilise headings to guide your reader as to what each section of your document is about
- Add a table of contents (this is very helpful to the report writer as it helps to develop the report’s structure)
- Avoid providing unnecessary information as more and more words can sometimes mean less and less meaning.
Well Structured
Reports should be well organised in the way they present information. You should break the document into major sections that each have a specific purpose. Each section should have a heading and sub-headings can be used to further break up the text.
Common sections of a report include:
- Cover page
- Table of Contents
- Terms of Reference
- Introduction
- Findings (The information you have researched)
- Analysis and Comment (Your analysis of the information you have researched.
- Conclusion
- References
Provides information to the reader in a clear and concise way
You should consider using tables, charts and pictures to convey information not just text.
All the time look critically at your report and judge whether what you have written makes sense, especially when you are discussing difficult concepts. A good practise is to get another person to read your report and comment on areas where there may be ambiguity or does not make sense.
You can add some "navigation" elements to help the reader move backwards and forwards through the document. For example, you can say " see Figure 1 on page 4".
Don’t try to crowd too much information on any page.
Provides information that is reliable and capable of being substantiated
If you are providing your own opinions in your report, try to balance them by also adding in alternative points of view (other people’s opinions).
Don’t say "People say" or "Experts believe" – this just makes you look like you haven’t done your research and are talking "off the top of your head". You should say which people or which experts!
You are entitled to put your own interpretation on something – but it’s just that, and not a fact. Don’t say something is a fact when it isn’t.
Avoid making simple errors in presenting figures e.g. saying 73% of people were not satisfied when you meant to say 37%.
Does not plagiarise other people’s work
You must, as a rule, properly acknowledge the sources of your information. To use other people’s work without acknowledgment is called plagiarism.
The method by which you should acknowledge your sources is called referencing – learn the Harvard Referencing system.
You will need to reference your sources briefly in the main body of the report and then more fully in a section called the Bibliography. This is mandatory.
Conforms with expected standards of presentation
Although you could present a handwritten report, you should realise that we live in an age of information technology. Word processing is a key skill for employment and it is really expected that your document will be word processed.
Make sure you add footers to each page of your document such as the page number and the author’s name (you). It is optional whether you add the title of your report in either the header or footer. It may depend on how many words are in the title and whether you can fit it in. Use point size of 8 for headers and footers.
Check for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Ask someone to proofread if you do not feel confident in this area. Do not always accept the computer’s suggested spelling – sometimes the computer will suggest the completely wrong word in a spelling check.
Give your document a nice cover page but don’t bother about silly clipart pictures.
