Report writing (2)

Still on the first series on report writing, this article focuses on further steps you can take as you prepare to write your report. In part I, we mentioned the need to set your objective – what you intend to achieve by writing the report – before embarking on the exercise. Recall that the objective of writing any report is to extend your readers’ knowledge of the world by reducing their uncertainty and increasing their understanding of it. This week, we will focus on other steps following your determining the objective of your report.

Assessing your readership is pertinent. At this stage, you want to ascertain who will be reading your report. The essence of this is to help you plan your content in a detailed fashion and examine your style and structure to suit your audience. These, put together, will lead to your content matching up to their level of knowledge and expertise. If you have come to know your audience (which sometimes is almost impossible to know them on a personal level), pay attention to concentrating on only points they will care about – any extraneous details will be distracting. Also, explain things they do not know – don’t take it for granted that they know all the concepts you plan to use. Additionally, address questions and concerns they would be likely to raise – don’t wait for them to raise it because you won’t be there to respond to it.

Like I mentioned earlier, it might be difficult to know your audience personally. That said, all hopes are not lost. There are a few things you can do. Think about whether the readers of your report are alike or mixed, and if it is regular practise for them to read reports. Also think about how much time it might take them to read a report and understand it. Knowing what they know and what they don’t can help you connect with them based on the former and then progress to the latter. If you can discern the position of your readers on these, it will be much easier for you to have a clear understanding of your readership as you create the report, and you can focus on their needs and expectations, not yours. Note that if your readers perceive your report as reader-friendly, they will be motivated to examine it all rather than one which is introspective.

After you have assessed your readership, the next thing you should do is to decide what information you will need for the report. That’s because some reports require minute information, and others require so much. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask someone else what they think about the amount of information you will need. Who might that someone else be? It’d make a lot of sense if this person is the one who commissioned the report, or it could be the key decision makers who have a say and can influence the success of the report. Find out from them if there are specific areas they would particularly like to see covered in your report. Remember, it’s all about them and not you. And once people feel like they have been involved in a project and that their opinions count, they are as good as having a buy-in on your recommendations.

Let’s take an example of a situation where you were asked to prepare a report on an accident that happened in your company’s cafeteria kitchen. You may have written down your own specific objective. Since you would be investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident, you may have the following as your objective: to investigate how an employee received injuries from a microwave while cooking in the kitchen. After this, you now need to decide what information you will need. For example, you can draw up a general list of areas to cover such as, ‘What happened?’ ‘What were the consequences?’ ‘Was the employee properly trained?’ ‘Was the microwave properly maintained?’ and ‘Was the accident avoidable?’ Your drawn up areas to cover must match your overall objective so that they are relevant. Proceeding from here after the confirmation, you can now begin to ask direct questions that have to be answered. As an example, again, under the question ‘Was the microwave properly maintained?’ further questions that would provide supplementary information should be asked: ‘Was a full-service record maintained?’ ‘Was the microwave in good working condition?’ and ‘Have any other problems been reported?’. Questions like these will help you collect as much information as required to write a good report.

One approach used by many is mind-mapping. Rather than start at the top of your page and work down in sentences, lists, or words, you begin at the centre of your page with the overall topic of your report. As you proceed, you may then branch out as your information requirements become obvious. Your mind-map is usually in bubbles. They branch out from a single theme – in this case, the accident. The benefit of your mind-maps is that they help you clearly define your objective of the report. Also, all the facts that will be needed are clearly identified; the links between the key concepts and facts will immediately be recognisable because of the proximity and connection. More so, the nature of the structure allows for easy addition of thoughts and information. You will be amazed at how the open-ended nature of a mind map will enable your brain to make new connections far more readily.

What is the point so far? At this stage of deciding what information you will use, what matters is that a complete picture of information requirements emerges. It is important for the central idea to resonate and radiate so that the report is coherent and interesting. If the picture of your mind map emanates from the central objective, it will support that objective and the report will be detailed enough to engage the attention of your readers.

In part III of this series, we will focus on how to prepare your skeletal framework for the report.