Writing Skills: Report Writing Skills (1 day)

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Course Overview

Reports are the lifeblood of organisational communications. They communicate information, tenders, feasibility studies, staffing assessments, project status, business plans, evaluations and countless other important issues. Unfortunately many reports are badly written. Messages are unclear and readers waste far too much valuable time struggling to get the information they need out of a report.

This programme gives a good grounding in writing a variety of reports so that readers can extract essential information quickly, understand the points being made and be able to make informed decisions.

Although English usage is overviewed briefly during the course, it is primarily concerned with producing sturctured, readable and clear reports.

Audience

All staff who have to write reports, large or small, for internal or external readers.

Skills Gained

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• specify the purpose of their report
• state their Terms of Reference
• use and modify a widely recognised report structure
• organise their material logically
• write and edit their reports so that information is clear and readable

Course Outline

REPORT WRITING - an overview

PREPARATION

• types of report
• defining the purpose and objectives
• identifying your readers and their needs

REPORT STYLES

• Short informal reports
• Short formal reports
• Long/Complex formal reports

REPORT STRUCTURE

Writing each part of the report:

• Report Title
• Terms of Reference
• Introduction
• Main Body - Findings: gathering the data, organising the information, mind mapping, structuring the argument
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Summaries

PRESENTATION AND LAYOUT

ILLUSTRATIONS

• using charts and diagrams to add weight to your message

USING PLAIN ENGLISH

• choosing and using words
• active and passive verbs
• punctuation

Writing Skills: Report Writing Skills (1 day) / S-RW-1