Report Writing

Course Description

This workshop covers all aspects of writing persuasive and influential reports. Participants work on their own material throughout the day – they also have the option of receiving feedback from the course leader.

The aim of the workshop is to help participants to:

• produce well-structured and professionally presented reports that meet a defined aim and enhance the organisation’s image
• understand the reader’s requirements
• write clearly and concisely
• use technology to save time

The workshop will cover:

Introduction

• To course and participants’ objectives

Planning

• The 6-step process
• Defining the aim
• Thinking about the reader and the actions you want them to take
• Setting the objective to define the content
• Getting started quickly and painlessly

Structure

• Ways of classifying information
• Rules of classification
• The different parts of a report and ‘what goes where’
• Standard structures for different reports, e.g. proposals, investigative and progress

Layout and presentation

• Page layout and typography
• Paragraphs
• Bullet points and parallelism
• Presenting facts and figures

Writing clearly and concisely

• Using words that are correct, simple and necessary
• Using active verbs
• Understanding and using readability statistics
• Being definite and using positive language

Grammar, punctuation and spelling

• ‘Dangling modifiers’
• The importance of punctuation
• Tips for improving spelling

Revising, evaluating and close

• Proofreading
• Review of actions from the day

The course addresses some of the Word tools that are particularly helpful in report writing, including using styles, outline view, document maps, track changes, split screen, and tiled screens.

Course Duration: 2 Days