Reports and other longer documents
The term report is all encompassing way of referring to documents that can have many different functions.
Technical writings usually take on characteristics that are either formal or informal in nature.
The setup of a formal memo generally consist of an abstract, a table of contents, a glossary, an introduction, a detailed discussion of the topic, a conclusion, and recommendations, plus attachments.
Informal documents don’t tend to be as restrained and follow as many guidelines as their more formal counterparts.
Writers should be careful to plan their reports with care from the beginning so that it sticks to its intended purpose.
Reports require writers to pay attention to their audience and write in a way that will be understandable to them.
Proposals are in ways special reports that persuade a person to do something.
Mathes and Stevenson focus on the importance of audience analysis.
Robert Dodge wrote a report that showed the reading habits of busy managers, he concluded that they rarely read the body of the report, but tend to favor the introduction and the conclusion.

Every communication study involves 3 components, a writer, a message, and an audience.
According to Stevenson and Mathes it is important remember the following when you’re inexperienced:
1) It is false to assume that the person addressed is the audience
2) It is false to assume that the audience is a group of specialist in the field
3) It is false to assume that the report has a finite period of use
4) It is false to assume that the author and the audience always will be available for reference
5) It is false to assume that the audience is familiar with the assignment
6) It is false to assume that the audience has been involved in daily discussions of the material
7) It is false to assume that the audience awaits the report
8) It is false to assume that the audience has time to read the report
It is important to understand as a writer that your audience poses a problem
Once you realize this you have to understand your audience in order to know how to solve the problem
Three types of audiences exist:
1) Horizontal: exist on each level
2) Vertical: exist between levels
3) External: exist when any unit interacts with a separate organization
Writers view is always relative because he is in “the system”
Egocentric Organization Charts identifies specific individuals rather than complex organizational units, it also categorizes people in terms of their proximity to the writer.
Trace the communication routes of the reports that you write.
The final step in the method is to assign priorities to your audiences.
Primary: people who make decisions or act on the basis of the information a report contains
Secondary: people who are affected by the decisions and actions
Immediate: people who route the report or transmit the information it contains
The immediate audiences for a report are those persons who route the report or transmit the information it contains.
At times the immediate audience is also part of the primary audience.
The Matrix for Audience Analysis is a convenient device for characterizing and classifying your readers once you have identified them.
The question of “What does management want in reports?” is a basic question in the business world that is often ignored.
Management wants to know
1) What’s the report about and who wrote it?
2) What does it contribute?
3) What are the conclusion and recommendations?
4) What are their importance and significance?
5) What’s the implication to the company?
6) What actions are suggested?
If a summary is to convey information effectively it should have three types of facts:
1) What the report is about.
2) The significance and implications of the work.
3) The action called for.
Most managers will not read the body of the text; they tend to favor introductions and conclusions that get the point across faster.
Thos that do actually read the body of the report said they did so because:
1) Especially interested in the subject.
2) Deeply involved in the project.
3) Urgency of the problem requires it.
4) Skeptical of the conclusion that were drawn.
Report studies show that managers tend to be interested in five broad areas.
1) Technical problems
2) New projects and products
3) Experiments and test
4) Materials and processes
5) Field troubles
Management has a number of responsibilities in the writing process, they are:
1) Define the project and the required reports
2) Provide proper perspective for the project and the required reporting
3) See that effective reports are submitted on time
4) See that the reports are properly distributed
An abstract is an extremely important document; it can either make or break your case that you’re pleading to management.
Despite this level of importance these documents are often thrown together in a very short amount of time due to their short nature.
They serve two main functions:
1) It provides the specialist in the field with enough information about the report to permit him to decide whether he should read it.
2) It provides the administrator or executive with knowledge about what has been done in the study or project.
In all forms of communication it is importance to never ignore your audience.
A simple method of making sure you remember your audience is to ask Who? Why? And How?
Nothing turns a reader off faster than writing to impress, do not talk down to them.
Reports should be aimed at a specific audience and not designed to talk to a large group of people.
Make sure that you are consistent with things such as measurements and that you don’t switch units frequently.
Many people in more advanced education fields have developed a need to over qualify their reports, make sure that you stay away from this.
Make sure to allow yourself enough time to rewrite and perfect your work.