Developing Information in a Report

One goal of professional communication in U.S. culture is to be succinct, a characteristic that’s especially important with the prevalence of digital communications.  Busy professionals do not want to waste time getting to the point of any communication, and do not want to read three or more paragraphs when one will suffice.  Yet the purpose of some professional documents, such as a formal report, is to delve into a subject in some depth.  Therefore, balancing both succinctness and idea development in a formal report requires careful thought and approach.

The process of developing information in a report always starts with considering your audience and purpose.

Consider Audience Stakeholders

Another way to consider audience in the planning stages of report writing, in addition to applying standard situational analysis questions, is to think of them as stakeholders and include those impacted presently and in the future. Paul Anderson, author of Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach, identifies three major types of stakeholders^[1]:

• Direct
• Indirect
• Remote

Direct stakeholders are those initially impacted by what you write. For instance, if you are writing an analytical feasibility report about opening a new waste disposal site, major stakeholders would include managers in the company you are writing the report for. However, disposal companies that might use this waste site in the future are also considered direct stakeholders because they will be in the same situation as the current company. Their future business will be impacted based on whether your report is accepted or declined.

Indirect stakeholders are those not impacted until a later time. Using the example of the waste disposal site, citizens in the area would be indirect stakeholders. The stakeholders don’t necessarily need to be people; nearby ecosystems could be considered indirect stakeholders as well. If toxic waste were dumped, it would harm the animals, rivers, and plant life nearby.

Remote stakeholders are not affected until far into the future. For example, future generations could be remote stakeholders in the waste disposal example, since there have been instances where toxic or poisonous materials have been disposed of incorrectly and the run-off that went into lakes and streams caused medical problems. Remote stakeholders bring to the forefront one major difference between reports and other types of business communication: reports can have long lifespans and be revisited far into the future.

Although you are writing for a current audience, analyzing direct, indirect, and remote stakeholders can help you develop information, as it helps you anticipate questions and issues that may arise.  You can then address those questions and issues succinctly in the body of your report.

Consider Purpose

Carefully consider your purpose in order to develop the body of a formal report. For example, you are a shift manager at a grocery store, and there has been an increase in customer complaints about fruit that seems to spoil more quickly than it used to. Your store manager has asked you to create a report on this issue. You need to determine whether your manager wants to know 1) causes of fruit spoilage (length of time that each type of fruit stays fresh from date picked, types of shipping containers, temperature of storage units), 2) what is happening in the store after the fruit is received (how the fruit is handled, how much fruit can sit on top of other fruit, temperature in the various storage units), 3) both items one and two, or something else. The purpose of a report will impact the amount and type of content and research.

Apply Informative Techniques for Developing Content

The following video discusses ways to present information: definition, description, example, comparison/contrast, and grouping/classifying. These techniques can help you present information specifically, precisely, and concisely, as they offer strategies for informing that may help you cut down on lengthy descriptions.  The video ends with a discussion of using outside sources, which is another way of developing content in a formal report (but only if outside source information is needed to address your purpose and audience).

One Last Word on Developing Report Information

Curb a tendency to add report sections to the body of a formal report simply because you think they are “supposed to be there,” rather than focusing on the purpose of each section and how it supports the audience and purpose of the report.

Organizing the Report Body

To consider how to organize your information in the body of a formal report, identify your primary audience – your direct stakeholders – and your purpose during the planning stage.  A strategy that spans both the planning and creating stages of the communication process is to list out possible headings, given your audience and purpose.  As you move more fully into creating, shuffle the items on your list of possible headings to see what makes sense where – does one group of information lead logically into the next?  You may also want to experiment with possible headings and organizational structures by writing brief bulleted lists and/or outlines to see which organization best addresses your audience and purpose.

For example, look below at three of many different ways to organize and structure body information for an informative progress report.  The purpose and audience of the report are the same, and essentially the same information would be included in each iteration; only the organization differs.  Yet the possible organizations would result in very different presentations of information, with different effects.

• Sample 1 might be most appropriate if your boss is more concept- than detail-oriented, someone who wants a general overview of the project’s progress.
• Sample 2 might be most appropriate if your boss is very detail-oriented and has recommended specific contractors for the project.
• Sample 3 might be most appropriate if you know that this project is the first phase of a larger project devoted to moving departments within the organization, and that this project will be used as a test case for ways to move – and not to move – departments incrementally throughout the upcoming year.

Important Organizational Characteristics

Look at the samples again and note the following characteristics, which aid clear organization in the body of a formal report:

• Create concise, clear, descriptive headings and subheadings. A reader can understand the type of information included simply by scanning the headings.
• Organization addresses the report’s purpose and primary audience directly.
• Parallel format in samples 2 and 3 – the same subheadings in the same order for each section of the report.  Use parallel format if you need to present the same information under different headings.