Author: Tsakani Stella Rikhotso

In summary a good report must be;

• Short but complete (concise);
• Containing only what is necessary;
• Simple; written in good language;
• Having no repetition, no redundancy;
• Including no preaching, lecturing;
• Containing interesting and relevant information;
• Well structured and organized;
• Neat and tidy (typed or well printed/written).
• Attractive

• Straight forward, honest, no deception (no lies)
• Interesting illustrations, designs. (colour if possible)
• Brief, short
• Neat and readable (good handwriting)
• To the point
• Simple English (or whatever language)
• Well spaced
• Has title and sub titles
• Organized or structured.

 

3.4 DISTRIBUTION OF REPORTS (SO 3, AC 4)

After a report has been written, it must be distributed to its intended reader. The distribution method must consider;

• Accessibility of the reader
• Cost
• Time
• Distance
• Ease of sending and retrieval.
• Company policy

A report can be distributed by the following forms;

• Email
• Postage
• Internal mail
• Courier
• Delivery

1. Email distribution

E-mail is used widely for internal and external communication.  It is quick and reliable, cheaper than using paper and employing someone to do internal mail. With e-mail, the message is typed, sent to the receiver’s e-mail address immediately and the receiver is made aware that he has a message waiting.

Attachments to the email Make sure that your recipient can receive them. Sending attachments is a normal practice when you are submitting documents for review or exchanging information in the workplace. ·      Note: Add a note at the end of the email to indicate that there are attachments (2 Attachments).  This will inform your reader that there are attachments and the reader can then check that they have received all the relevant documents. NOT: “Please find …” or “Attached please find …” JUST: “I attach the following: …”

 

 

Ten Tips for Effective E-Mail

1. Think before you write. Just because you can send information faster than ever before, it doesn’t mean that you should send it. Analyse your readers’ needs to make sure that you are sending a message that will be both clear and useful.
2. Remember that you can always deny that you said it. But if you write it, you may be held accountable. You may be surprised to find where your message may end up.
3. Keep your message concise. Remember that the screen only shows approximately one half of a hard-copy page. Save longer messages and formal reports for regular (‘snail’) or overnight mail. On the other hand, do not keep your message so short that the reader has no idea what you are talking about. Include at least a Summary (Action or Information) in every E-mail message.
4. Remember to indicate how many attachments you have sent with the email
5. Remember that E-mail is not necessarily confidential. Some companies will retain the right to monitor employees’ messages. (Refer to #1 and #2.) Don’t send anything you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing published in your company’s newsletter.
6. Don’t FLAME your readers. It’s unprofessional to lose control in person; to do so in writing usually just makes the situation worse. (Refer to #2 and #4.)
7. Don’t spam your readers. Don’t send them unnecessary or petty messages. Soon, they will stop opening any message from you. (Refer to #1.)
8. DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS! IT LOOKS LIKE FLAMING! Remember that if you emphasize everything, you will have emphasized nothing.
9. don’t type in all lower case. if you violate the rules of english grammar and usage, you make it difficult for the reader to read.
10. “Take the time to poofread your document before you sent it. Rub the document thru the spell checker and/or the grammer checker. Even simpl tipos will make you look sloppie and damage you re proffessional credubility.”

2. Postage

Is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects, wherein written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post. In South Africa post is delivered through the Post office. This distribution method is usually used when the recipients are outside the company.

3. Internal mail

This distribution method involves sending reports using internal messengers. This method is limited to recipients within the organisation. It is a suitable method to distribute confidential information.

2. Courier

A courier is a person or a company who delivers messages, packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than usual mail services, and their use is typically restricted to packages where one or more of these features are considered important enough to warrant the cost.

Different courier services operate on all scales, from within specific towns or cities, to regional, national and global services. The world’s largest courier companies are DHL, FedEx.

EXAMPLE OF A POORLY WRITTEN REPORT (Bracketed comments indicate incomplete information or weaknesses) Tuition by Joe Doe Introduction. I analyzed the tuition at the MIAC colleges.  [What is MIAC?  For what time period?  Why would you want to do this?]  The median was 16353, and the range was 13340 to 23469. [The median what? What is the unit of measure?  What does this tell the reader about the tuitions?] Methods. The data was found on the Internet at nces.ed.gov [What is this web page?  Is the source reliable?]  The variable of interest was tuition.  [What is an individual?  What is the type of the variable?  What are the units of measure?]  To describe the data, I used a stemplot, median, and IQR.  [What specifically are these tools used for?] StataQuest 4.0 was used for all analyses on the computer in my dorm room.  [What type of computer was used?] Results. The data was skewed toward high values.  [What is the data?  What is the context?]  The median was 16353, [the median what?  what is the unit of measure?] and the IQR was 2115. [The IQR of what?  What is the unit of measure?]   There were two outliers at 20688 and 23469. [Identify the outliers and how they were determined to be outliers] Discussion. Most of the data was between 15000 and 19000. [What data?  What is the context?  Units of measure?  What does this tell you about the variable?]  Half were below 16353, with the middle half between 15365 and 17480. [Half of what?  Units of measure?  What does this tell you about the variable?]   APPENDIX. Table.  Raw Data.  [What is the data?  For what time period?  Units of measure?] college                  tuition Augsburg              15250 Bethel                   15365 Carleton               23469 St. Benedict’s       16441 St. Catherine’s     15578 Concordia             13340 Gustavus              17480 Hamline                 15798 Macalester            20688 St. John’s             16441 St. Mary’s              13645 St. Olaf                  18250 St. Thomas           16353

Writing is a process of:

• planning;
• writing; and

Pretty simple, huh? But it is NOT a linear process. If you “plan”, and then “write”, and then “revise”, and then stop — hand it in — the odds are it will be pretty bad. Writing is a non-linear, often circular, process that looks like:

Most people find that “planning” is the best place to start. Most people also “start at the beginning”. If that doesn’t work for you, start somewhere else. [It’s pretty easy to “chop and change” later with a good word processing package.] Thus, if you really can’t seem to get into writing the introduction, “stuff the introduction”, start somewhere in the middle! If you can’t seem to get a good “plan” or “outline” that works, “stuff the plan” and start writing. Very soon, you will start to see what must come before, and what must come after, the bit that you’re writing now. And thus your plan evolves.

Usually it is easier to “start with the plan”, and to “start at the beginning”, but if that isn’t working, try something else. You are judged by the finished product, not how you got there. As you get more experience, and develop more confidence, it all starts to fall into place. Trust me — I survived all the writing horrors I had in high school, and uni, and lived to tell the tale.

REMEMBER: It is not a “once through” linear process! Regardless of where you start, you will probably have to modify your plan, and what you wrote, many times. How many times? Well, that depends a bit on whether you’re writing a 2-page essay, a 10-page report or a 600-page manual. You should keep going until you “get it right” and/or are satisfied with the result. Often, you will stop when it’s time to hand it in, or you fall asleep, or it’s time to work on something else. [Having taught “How to write” courses for many, many years, I’ll still go through at least two — maybe three — drafts in writing this document.]

3.2.1 LOGICAL STRUCTURE

By logical structure is meant the natural unfolding of a story as the reader progresses through the document. This is achieved by going from the general to the specific, with the background material preceding the technical expose, which should lead logically to the conclusions. Consider a good joke. It has the structure as shown in Fig.1:

Figure 1: Joke structure

In our case, the punch line is the set of conclusions. Everything should support the conclusions and naturally lead up to them. Remember this when constructing your contents list! A typical technical report has the following progression:

 

Figure 2: Report structure

3.2.2 WRITING IN THIRD PERSON

To write in the third person you must imagine that you are an outsider reporting the events and actions of your subject, rather than writing as though the events are happening to you. You either use people’s names or the third person pronouns. Remember, pronouns are classified as follows: The singular pronouns refer to one person, and the plural pronouns refer to more than one. Within each of these two groups, they’re classified as either first, second, or third person. Here is the classification:

A. Singular Pronouns
1. First Person: I, me, my, mine
2. Second Person: You, your (and the old forms thee, thou, thy, thine)
3. Third Person: He, him, his, he, her, hers, Its

1. Plural Pronouns
   1. First Person: We, us, our
   2. Second Person: You, yours (or “Y’all” in the South, plus the old forms)
   3. Third Person: They, them, their, theirs; namesOne way to think of it is “I” come first; “You” come second, and everybody else comes in third.
   So when you write in the third person, use the third person pronouns, as above, and don’t use the first or second person. For example, don’t say, “He told me,” but rather “He said.” Instead of “One of the questions I asked him is ‘Why did you decide to be on the football team,’ ” you could write, “When asked why he decided to be on the football team, John replied ….” Hope this helps.

If writing about yourself in a resume or report use a noun such as “The applicant” or “The researcher” rather than a pronoun.

LEARNING ACTIVITY Rewrite the following in third person I.        “I went to the site”. II.        “I like the sport, the coach, and my teammates,” said Mfundo III.        “We then went to visit the people suffering from Malaria in the nearby village” IV.        “I am writing this report to provide solutions to some of the problems that we are encountering in executing the delegated tasks” V.            “As a recommendation, i propose the project be stopped pending investigations”

When compiling a report it is important to;

• Understand why the report is required and the terms of the brief. (terms of reference)
• Know the due date and accept that you will have to work hard to have the report completed and ready on that date.
• Plan how you will proceed to gather information (procedures)
• Plan how you will meet the deadline – estimating how long each part of the process will take, allocating a time period to do each section.
• Gather the information.  Group the relevant information together. (findings) Record the results that you found.
• Generate as many possible solutions.  Select possible solutions.  Record these as (conclusions).
• Decide on the best options for solving the problem. (Recommendation)
• Double check that the recommendations are linked to the conclusions which are linked to the findings which in turn are link to the procedures.
• Write the report.
• Proof-read the document.

Specific Outcomes

Compile reports related to a selected business function.

Assessment Criteria

This specific outcome shall cover:

• The identified reports are compiled using current information.  (SO 3, AC 1)
• The report is distributed in the required manner in time to meet the specified deadline. (SO 3, AC 4)

 

Each and every organisation has a policy or procedure that must be used when obtaining information. This procedure identifies;

• Who can access certain documents
• In what cases or situation
• Who must authorize such documents?
• Process of authorizing
• When they must be returned.
• How to track documents that have been dispatched.

An example

INFORMATION SOURCE	WHO CAN ACCESS	AUTHORISATION	PROCESS OF AUTHORISATION	WHEN THEY MUST BE RETURNED
Performance appraisal	Employee manager; chairman of disciplinary hearing; court	HR Manager	Signature of the HR Manager or representative	24 hours
Minutes	Meeting participants, superiors	Office manager	Fill-in an application form to have access to minutes. The form must be approved and signed by the office manager before access is granted	2 days
Project report	Project manager, superior	Project manager	Fill-in an application form to have access to minutes. The form must be approved and signed by the project manager before access is granted	3 days

LEARNING ACTIVITY I.        Identify and describe policies that exist in your organisation to guide the collection of information. II.        List examples of confidential records that might exist in your organisation. III.        Explain the importance of collecting data when writing reports.