# WHAT GOES IN A REPORT

Key Parts of the Report
Check with the person who assigned the report about what you need to include in it. While not every report will have all of these, the generally accepted parts of a formal report are:
The title page
Table of contents
Summary (also called the abstract or synopsis)
Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
Recommendation
Bibliography
Appendices
Glossary
You should start a new page for each one, and remember to number your pages.
Title Page
This gives the title of the report, the date it was completed, the author’s name and, where relevant, his title or position. It also gives the name of the person or group authorizing the report and often the intended audience.
It’s also the place where you can thank any people or organizations that provided special information.
Table of Contents
This is where you show how your report is organized by listing the various sections and subsections and the relevant page numbers. It’s important because it shows the structure and hierarchy of information. Anyone reading the report can go straight to the information they need.
If your table of contents is written well, it will contain thoughtful and descriptive headings that can be used as the basis for your summary.
Summary (or Abstract or Synopsis)
The summary includes a short overview of what’s in your report. It should cover major areas such as the purpose, approach, data presented and conclusions or recommendations. This is not the place for any factual details, statistics or examples — they’ll all come later.
The summary can contain a sentence or two from your introduction, a sentence about each of the main headings from your table of contents and a sentence or two from your conclusion and recommendations. It should be short — no longer than a page. Its purpose is to tell your readers what they'll find if they decide to read the entire report.
Introduction
The introduction sets out the background, terms of reference and scope of your report. It should tell your readers:
> What the problem is or was (this is the background)
> Who initiated the report and why it was written (these are the terms of reference)
> What readers can expect to find, including the topics covered by the report and the method or methods of investigation used (this is the scope)
It should say who the intended audience is, list any constraints such as your deadline, permitted length or access to information, and clearly state your aims and objectives.
This is also where you can explain how you collected your information and what materials, equipment or techniques you used. Not every report will need all this detail — many may only require a brief outline of your purpose and scope.
Your introduction should be relevant, factual and brief.
Body
In the body you present all the facts and opinions you’ve collected and organize your data as already discussed — logically and clearly. Use headings and subheadings, footnotes where necessary, and graphics where applicable. Not all your charts, tables, maps, statistics or diagrams have to be in the body of the report.
You can add these to your Appendices and simply refer to them where relevant so you don’t interrupt the flow of your report.
When deciding on how to present your information, it’s always safe to go from the general to the specific and from the descriptive to the analytical. By starting with general ideas, your readers can draw upon their own knowledge of the subject, and this prepares them for the more specific ideas that will follow.
This part of your report should contain enough information to justify your conclusions and recommendations, but all information must be relevant — if it’s not, get rid of it, however interesting it may be!
Conclusions
were left without support after their initial training session.
You may also have obtained documents from similar companies that contained statistics showing how absenteeism fell when issues were addressed. Regardless of the specifics, you should present enough information in this part of your report to justify your recommendations.
At this stage don't include any new information — the function here is to cover your conclusions about the situation. You can use numbered points for this section.
The warning below about your conclusion comes from the Learning Center at the University of New South Wales, Australia:
“Three academics are travelling on a train through Britain. As the train crosses into Scotland they see a black sheep in a field.
“The first academic remarks "Oh look, the sheep in Scotland are black." (An over- generalization)
“The second academic replies "No, some sheep in Scotland are black." (A reasonable conclusion)
“The third academic declares "There is at least one sheep in Scotland that is black on at least one side." (A precise and cautious conclusion)
Recommendations
If part of the scope of your report was to evaluate and initiate some changes, you set these out in your recommendations.
In our example above, you can recommend ways to improve low morale, such as implementing a mentor program for new staff or flexible work hours that enable staff to build up a “bank” of time to be taken when they need to attend to family matters.
Your recommendations can be given as a series of numbered points, but they must always follow from your conclusions. And again, you can't introduce any new information.
Bibliography
It’s important to acknowledge all your sources of information, so that people who are interested can follow up with extra reading and check your accuracy at a later date.
Most organizations will use a specific form of documentation, so always ask and follow the House Rules. If no guidance is available, you can use this format: Author’s Surname, Initial or First name (if given). Name of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Date. You must also acknowledge details of surveys, interviews, films and so on.
Appendices
If you find additional (and relevant) graphics, statistics or documents, you can include them at the end of the report. Often it’s a useful way to provide more detailed Once you’ve presented all the relevant details, you must explain what the findings mean, and you must relate your conclusions to the objectives stated in your intro duction.
If you said your purpose was “to determine ways to improve employee morale,” then you can’t conclude that the causes of low morale are poor wages and long hours because this is a statement of causes, not a way to improve morale.
The conclusion can, however, be a summary of your main points about the causes of low morale as long as it also contains an evaluation of ways to overcome them.
The body of your report should have contained evidence of low staff morale, perhaps obtained through a survey or a questionnaire that highlighted employees’ concerns. Or perhaps a review of staff training showed that new staff members information your readers may need for reference. All appendices must be numbered so they can be referred to in the main body. (See the sources above for ways to do this.)
Glossary
Whether you use a glossary or not will depend on your intended audience. If you’re using specialized technical, medical or scientific terms and your readers are not experts, then a glossary will help them. But if your audience can be expected to have this knowledge, it’s not necessary.