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Structuring & Writing Reports – Report Writing Training Course Outline

Business reports are your company’s main tool to enable and support critical decision-making. If you are proposing a course of action – either within your company or to a client – the report you write will be its best advocate. Despite this being such an important function, many business writers only learn report writing by trial and error on the job.

It takes a lot of skill to communicate technical or commercial information efficiently and accurately. A business report writing course can give you a shortcut to using the most effective techniques.

This course has been designed specifically for people who are required to write business reports. It concentrates exclusively on the skills you need to make the writing process easier and the resulting document more effective.

What you will learn on this report writing training course

By the end of the course, you will know how to:

• Analyse your audience and tailor the content to their specific needs
• Gather data efficiently and select the relevant information for your readers
• Use best practice in structuring your document
• Choose words that support your message and don’t distract your reader
• Assess the best places to use graphics, and choose the right image to support your content
• Edit your draft report for maximum impact

Is this course right for me?

Plain Words offers three standard report writing courses:

• Structuring & Writing Reports is designed for delegates with little or no previous report writing experience, who have reached a stage in their careers that require them to start producing written business reports.
• Business & Report Writing for Managers is aimed at delegates who are already writing reports but want to revisit the basics, generally raise their game and ensure they are using best practice techniques. It is also frequently chosen by clients who need to achieve greater consistency from their experienced staff.
• Writing Technical Documents & Reports is a technical writing course designed to build on the skills of Scientists, Engineers, Technicians, Designers and Project Managers who write technical documents or reports. It concentrates on the principles and processes involved in communicating technical information effectively, whether to the layman or the expert.

All three courses address some similar concepts, but the content is pitched differently for each of the intended audiences to take into account their different levels of experience and the documents they write.

What our customers say

“A very interesting and thorough course. It has been interactive and fun. I have learnt new skills and am looking forward to putting them into practice. Thank you.”

EC, CAPS Solutions

“Fantastic course, well supported by in class exercises. Well worth attending!”

BB, Microsoft

“Very useful course – hopefully it will teach me not to be so wordy. Course very well given considering the fairly dry subject.”

BW, Oil Spill Response Ltd.

“I was very impressed with the overall session. I have learnt new skills and I am confident what I have learnt today can be transferred into good report writing.”

JT, London South Bank University

How we deliver the report writing training course

It is available as a one or two-day tutor-led Virtual Classroom.

One-day intensive

This course concentrates on showing you, step-by-step, the process of structuring and writing reports. Exercises are used to illustrate various points throughout the day.

Two-day workshop

Delegates practise report writing skills, learning the techniques through group discussion, exercises and working on real examples of reports you bring to the workshop.

This contains nine modules and takes delegates approximately two hours to complete. Please note that we cover the same topics as outlined on this page in less detail. Some modules have been rearranged to work better online. You can see the content list by clicking here

Report Writing Course Contents

1. Clarifying your purpose

• Do you have what it takes? The skills needed to write reports
• Why do you do it? What’s the purpose of a business or technical report?
• Why you won’t get anywhere without a clear objective
• All right, I’m sold – how do I set a clear objective?

2. Analysing your audience

• Do you know who you’re writing for?
• What will they want out of your report? The first step to making sure you deliver!
• How do you satisfy a mixed readership with multiple requirements?

3. Designing your structure

• Structuring before you start writing – you wouldn’t build without good foundations
• Using mind mapping or Word™ Outline View to sequence and structure your material
• How to structure the beginning, middle and end of your report
• Organising your content to achieve your purpose
• How to give bad news
• How to structure the Executive Summary
• Ideas for structuring sections
• Organising your content – are you trying to persuade, inform, explain or discuss?

4. Selecting your information

• Collecting and evaluating information – how to make it easy for people to help you
• Deciding what information is relevant – the payoff for having a clear objective
• Deciding the level of detail to include is easier when you’ve analysed your audience

5. Developing your style

• Crafting short, simple sentences to increase readability
• Choosing familiar words that make your meaning clear
• Getting rid of the waffle that bores readers
• Putting action in your verbs for direct, concise writing
• Writing in terms your reader can relate to
• Some pointers on British vs American text

6. Drafting and laying out your text

• The importance of the right mindset – how to avoid getting sidetracked
• The process – prepare, draft, relax, polish
• How to break up text – headings, bulleted or numbered lists, tables, diagrams, questions and answers, etc.

7. When and how to use graphics

• Why use graphics?
• When to use graphics – pictures, screen shots, diagrams, flow charts, tables, graphs, etc.
• The best places for your graphics, in order of preference
• Things to check when including graphics

8. Editing and proofing your draft

• A top-down approach to improving your text – see it the way your readers do
• Ensuring that you achieve maximum impact – things to check when editing your draft
• Removing commonly confused words, ‘poppycock’, poor punctuation and grammar
• Getting the most out of the spelling and grammar checkers
• Some common punctuation errors and how to avoid them
• Hints on proofreading to help you avoid a red face
• Report polishing checklist – that last once-over to save your sanity

9. Exploiting the tools

• Getting the most out of Word™
• On-line style guides for instant answers to annoying quibbles
• Metadata can be your undoing – what it is and how to hide it
• Handling version control
• Using Word™ templates
• Using titles, section headings and footnotes
• Including references and a bibliography

Enquire about a course Now!

For the timetable of all courses see the schedule.

For more details you can enquire about a public course, enquire about a private course, call us on +44 (0)1235 60 30 22 or email .