Producing Written and Oral Business Reports

Dorinda Clippinger

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781631574160
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Comunicación empresarial

Producing Written and Oral Business Reports: Formatting, Illustrating, and Presenting emphasizes cost-effective methods for producing reports that will do what you want them to do. Numerous examples, helpful illustrations, concise writing style, and convenient checklists let you acquire vital information rapidly. Producing Written and Oral Business Reports is a how-to guide for report creation throughout your career!

CHAPTER 1

First Draft to Final Draft

Good reports start out with careful planning. Your plan will start with articulating your purpose and what it is you want to accomplish. What is your general purpose: production, innovation, goodwill, what? Then, specifically, what do you want the receiver(s) of your report to do?

Next, you will need to analyze your audiences—both your immediate reader and possible others who might be brought into the thought process—and what they want and need from the report. Another important element in your planning is to consider the context, or overall circumstances, in which you are writing and whether the writing style should be formal or informal.

Then, you will decide on the content needed, how to organize the report, and how to deliver it. From there you will outline the report, either informally (list of keywords, phrases, or both) or formally (structured numbering system).

With your outline in hand, you are ready to create the first draft.¹ In simple reporting situations, the first draft often is also the final draft. In more complex situations, you may need to revise and edit the draft several times before it is finally produced and delivered. Each successive draft should bring you closer in style to what your audience needs and expects.

Style can be thought of as a distinctive manner of expression or a technique by which something is done or created. Empathy, accuracy, completeness, conciseness, and clarity are qualities that should be demonstrated in all reports—long or short, simple, or complex. To achieve these qualities, you must decide purposefully on a writing style instead of just letting it happen. Ideally, writing style decisions are made before you begin writing your first draft.

Decide on a Writing Style

In choosing a writing style for a particular report, empathize with your readers. Consider their needs—both information needs and ego needs. Information needs are the data that will enable your audience to understand and fulfill the objectives of your report. Ego needs are desires for recognition and acknowledgment of worth. A report may provide all the information a receiver needs; but unless the report also satisfies ego needs, it may not motivate that person to act.

The content, context, and desired outcomes for simple and complex reports may differ considerably. The overall style of simple, relatively short reports (such as a trip report, a production report, or minutes of a meeting) differs from the style of complex specialized reports (such as a business plan or a business research report). Then, the decisions you make about report tone, level of formality, and objectivity will further define your writing style.

Choose Report Tone

Tone is evidence of your attitude toward your message and the receiver. Some descriptors of tone are personal, impersonal; formal, informal; positive, negative; courteous, curt; passive, forceful; and conciliatory, defensive. In written reports, tone is conveyed by word choice and message structure. In oral reports, tone also may be conveyed by vocal pitch and emphasis, posture, and gestures.

The following examples demonstrate how you might plan to accommodate a receiver’s needs by carefully selecting your tone, structure, and delivery medium, in addition to content. Notice that your objective in both cases is to get the receiver to act.

Style for a Simple, Informal Report

Sender’s objective: A bank teller will move to a station that will enable more effective customer service.

Receiver’s needs: Information needs—to know when to move, where to move. Ego needs—to be respected as a valued member of the organization.

Report structure: Direct—main point followed by brief explanation, if any.

Report tone: Courteous, informal.

Delivery medium: Face-to-face,with this e-mail follow-up.

Example: As we discussed this morning, Juan, please close your teller window and take over the drive-up window every Friday from 1 p.m. until closing time. Cars back up out there on Friday afternoons.

Style for a Relatively Complex Report

Sender’s objective: Upper management will move the store to a new location so that profits may increase.

Receiver’s needs: Information needs—justification for, likely benefits of, and estimated costs of moving the store. Ego needs—recognition of status and decision-making authority; respect for value of reader’s time.

Report structure: Direct—recommendation to move the store to a new location followed by supporting details: profitability of current location, problems associated with current location, goals for store, cost of move to new location, and benefits of move.

Report tone: Formal and respectful, yet forceful and confident. Delivery medium: Written report, supplemented by oral presentation; both enhanced by visual aids.

Choose Degree of Formality

When you draft a report, you must choose the degree of formality you want to convey. Formality is conveyed by language and by inclusion or exclusion of certain parts of a report. You can decide what formal parts to include with your report after you have written the report body. You must, however, decide about the formality of language before you draft the report body.

Some contexts may justify informality, a style that is most often reserved for situations in which you know the primary reader well or frequently work with that person. Even under those circumstances, however, an informal style may not be appropriate because secondary readers must also be considered. If a report is likely to pass among many readers, some of whom you may not even know, a formal style is generally preferable. Similarly, when the primary reader files the report for future use by other people, a formal style is often preferred.

Assume, for example, that two cities are trying to annex a residential area known as Winslow Hills. You are a member of the Winslow Hills Homeowners Association, and its officers have asked you to determine the homeowners’ attitudes and preferences with respect to annexation. The officers will circulate the summary of your final report to all homeowners and will present the full report to the competing city councils. In such a situation, an informal style is appropriate for a progress report to the officers of the homeowners’ association, whom you know well and with whom you share common concerns. The final report, however, would likely be written in a formal style, which would show respect for the elected officials while emphasizing the seriousness of the annexation issue.

No sharp distinction exists between formality and informality in reports. Consequently, no one can define exactly what constitutes formal or informal language. The major difference between formal and informal language is the presence or absence of words that suggest how well the writer and reader (speaker and listener) are acquainted. The language we use with peers or individuals whom we know well—informal language—is often characterized by frequent use of first names, contractions, and first- and second-person pronouns: I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours, you, your, yours. In addition, colloquial expressions—words and phrases commonly used in conversations—connote informality. Examples include OK, thumbs up, go-ahead as equivalents for agreement, approval. Other colloquial expressions are unique to certain regions, such as “crack the window” for “open the window” and “cut on the light” for “turn on the light.”

Despite the popularity of text messaging and its increasing use in business, the conventions of those messages—numerous abbreviations and emoji, sentence fragments, and missing capitalization, punctuation, and vowels—are generally too informal for business reporting. Most texters are young professionals.² Although able to decipher and send personal text messages, older professionals may be offended by such informality for business reports.

For several other reasons, even simple, direct reports should probably be delivered by e-mail or phone, not by text message. Texts can give the impression that the message is not important. Unlike e-mail, texting leaves no digital paper trail.³ Use of a voice-to-text application only complicates matters. As the sender, you cannot be sure whose voice your phone picked up—maybe a nearby conversation or song lyrics from another device near you.⁴

In contrast, the language we tend to use with someone who holds a high-status position or individuals whom we do not know well represents formal language. Absence of first- and second-person pronouns, use of courtesy or position titles with full names or last names, and avoidance of contractions and colloquial expressions characterize formal style.

Formality, however, does not equate to wordiness, unwieldy sentences, or overuse of passive verbs. Even formal writing can be concise, clear, and vigorous. The following examples contrast features of informal and formal writing.

First- and Second-Person Pronouns Names and Titles

Informal: I interviewed your information technology managers and technicians. Your IT crew is eager to have a tai chi class offered on your premises during the lunch hour.

Formal: Interviews with information technology managers and technicians revealed their readiness to participate in an on-site tai chi class aimed at stress reduction.

Informal: Your IT employees are stressed-out; you should have a good turnout if you offer a tai chi class during lunch hour.

Formal: Information technology personnel have strong motivation to support an on-site tai chi class.

Names and Titles

Informal: Jean said that IT support increased 12 percent in February.

Formal: Ms. Jean Herriot, IT support coordinator, reported a 12 percent increase in support requests during February.

Informal: If you need additional informat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. First Draft to Final Draft
• Chapter 2. Formatting Reports
• Chapter 3. Illustrating Reports
• Chapter 4. Reporting Business Research
• Chapter 5. Presenting an Oral Report
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Adpage