General superstructure of reports general Reports
General Reports
General superstructure of reports:
The general superstructure of reports contains six elements, one for each of
the six basic questions.
1.
Introduction
2.
Method
of obtaining facts
3.
Facts
4.
Discussion
e.
5.
Conclusions
6.
Recommendations
1.
Introduction:
In the introduction of a report, you
answer your readers’ re readers may take many pages, in What is the problem
that your report will help to solve? What activities you performed, towards
solving that problem? How your audience can apply your information in their own
efforts towards solving the problem?
2.
Method of Obtaining Facts:
It also suggests to your readers,
how they can gain additional information on the same subject. For example, if
yo s technique, your account of your method may help others design similar
projects.
3.
Facts:
Your facts are the individual pieces
of information that underline and support your conclusions and recommendations. If your report for
example, Ayesha’s is based upon interviews, your facts are the things that
people told you. If your report is based upon laboratory, field, or library
research, your facts are the verifiable pieces of information that you
gathered.
4.
Discussion:
Taken alone, facts mean nothing.
Therefore, an essential element of every report, you prepare will be a
discussion in which you interpret your facts in a way that is significant to your
readers. It is important to remember
that your readers count on you not only to select facts that are relevant to them, but also to discuss
those facts in a way that is meaningful to them.
5.
Conclusions:
Like interpretations, conclusions
are general statements, based on your facts. However, conclusions don’t simply
focus on interpreting the facts but also on answering the readers’ question.
i.e. “ How are those facts significant to us?
6.
Recommendations:
Just as conclusions grow out of
interpretations of the facts, recommendations grow out of conclusions. They
answer the reader’s question, “If your conclusions are valid, what should we
do?” Depending on many factors, including the number and complexity of the
things you are suggesting, you may state your recommendations in a single
sentence or in many pages.
A note about
summaries:
Many longer reports share another
feature i.e. they are preceded by a separate summary of the report overall.
Such summaries are often called ‘Executive Summaries’ because they usually are
addressed to decision-makers.
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