Assignments are the worst nightmare for students of colleges and universities. Report writing is one of the type of assignments assigned by professors and writing a report is quite difficult for students. It focuses on factual information rather than general. If you are a college or university student and struggling with how to write a report then this is the right place for you.
Reports are assigned to students as a form of written assessment. It helps professors to evaluate what students have learned from their reading, research and experience. Apart from this, writing a report provides an important skill to students that is widely used in the work place nowadays.
What is report writing?
It is a type of assessment where students have to present facts and information logically. It is a specific form of writing which needs to be written short, concisely and well planned to address a particular purpose or to analyse a situation/issue. Students receive report writing assignments of various subjects as it helps improve decision-making, research skill, time management skill and problem-solving skill. There are different types of report which depends on the purpose and to whom you present the report.
The following are the common types of reports:
Academic report: Academic reports are assigned to students to test their comprehension of the subject such as biographies, book reports and historical events reports.
Business report: This type of report is based on a business strategy where students have to create marketing reports, SWOT analysis, feasibility reports and many more.
Scientific report: In scientific reports, students have to share the finding of their research. This type of report includes case studies, research papers, etc.
Reports can further divide on the basis of how they are written formal or informal, internal or external and short or long.
What are the key elements of a report?
The elements of a report are the secret ingredients to boost your grades. The six key elements of report writing are as follows:
- Executive summary
- Introduction
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- Bibliography
Structure of report writing
Students must follow the proper structure for writing a report as it plays an important role in increasing their grades. Basically, the structure of writing a report depends on its type and requirements of the assignment. There are several structures for report writing but the most common structure is given below:
- Executive summary: An executive summary is just like an abstract in an academic paper. It is a section which is a brief overview of the whole report.The main purpose of an executive summary is to summarize the finding of the report so readers can easily find all the important information ‘at a glance’.
- Introduction: This is the section where you introduce your topic. The introduction must explain the overall topic that you are about to discuss including your thesis statement, background and significance.
- Main body: This section of the report consists of various headings and subheadings and explains all the major discoveries. The main body is the integral section of a report as it makes up the majority of the whole report.
- Conclusion: In the conclusion section, you have to conclude all the information and come to a definitive interpretation of judgement. Make sure to summarize all the important points in this section rather than introducing any new information.
- Bibliography: A bibliography is the last section of the report where all the references are included and it is important to give credits to the original authors. There are several referencing style available such as APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago and many more referencing styles. Make sure to follow the referencing style which is provided by your professor.
Apart from these, your report must consist of a title page, table of contents, headings and sub-headings, images, graphs, recommendations, citations and appendices.
Guide to writing an impressive report
For students, writing a report is anything but easy but you can follow these tips to write a perfect and high-scoring report:
- Choose the topic wisely: Selecting a topic is the first step of your report writing. Most of the time, the topic is assigned to students by their professors. In this case, you can ignore this step. If you have to select a topic on your own then it is the most important step in the writing process. Choose the topic for your report by keeping these two criteria in your mind: there is adequate information available and the topic must be something you are interested in.
- Gathering relevant information: Conducting in-depth research before writing is a must. Gather all the relevant information and facts from such as other reports, research papers, books, case studies and many other sources.
- Create a thesis statement: A thesis statement is important as it summarizes the main point of your report. Writing a thesis statement helps you conceptualize the main theme of the report.
- Create an outline: Before starting to write the report, make sure to prepare an outline. It will help you to stay on track while writing the report and there be less chance of missing any important detail.
- Write a rough draft: It is the most time consuming step as you need to write all the information from your research. Simply follow the prepared outline to make sure you are not missing out on anything. As it is the rough draft so you need not to worry. Just write it in the most relaxed and natural way without taking any stress. You can correct the mistakes later.
- Avoid apostrophes and contractions: It is recommended to avoid using apostrophes and contractions like “couldn’t” as a report follows a clear and concise language. Instead of this, you can use “could not”.
- Proofread: After composing the final draft, proofread the content as it will help you fix the mistakes which you ignored the first time. Proofreading help you avoid grammatical errors, spelling typos and inappropriate sentences. You can also take help from grammar checking tools to ensure there is no grammatical and spelling error in your report.
Skills required to write a perfect report
Reports can be of various types such as business organization, leadership style, government initiative, etc. Writing an amazing report requires a few skills and some of them are listed below:
Understanding of the topic/subject
To write an impeccable report, you must have a good understanding of the topic or subject. You must have a great knowledge of the selected field of study.
Excellent research skills
Research is an important part of the report writing process as it involves finding out more relevant information. Researching includes using effective tools to gather information, refining queries to get better research results and evaluating information on the basis of validity, accuracy and appropriateness.
Time management skills
This skill is a must for writing a report as it will help you to estimate adequately the time required to finish the report. Students often procrastinate their assignments till the last minute which makes it impossible to complete the assignment timely. That’s why managing the time is important in report writing.
Great writing skills
To write a report, you must be well versed in introducing, explaining, presenting and concluding your topic. You have to be concise and clear while writing a report and stick to the standard structure.
Proofreading skills
Most students ignore the proofreading steps but submitting your report without proofreading may result in poor grades. To avoid this situation, you must have great proofreading skills so that you can avoid grammatical and spelling errors in the report.
Final Words
Writing a report becomes easier when you understand who is your audience and by following the above-mentioned tips. If you do not succeed to craft a compelling report in the first go then do not give up. Try to write reports as required because practice makes a man perfect. In the situations where you do not have enough time or skills to complete your report then you can take assistance from Online Report Writing Help. We assist you to write a standard quality report with our Assignment Help services that will impress your professor and fetch an A+ grade. You can save a lot of time by hiring our report writing experts as they have immense knowledge about how to write a report. Our experts are well-versed in handling various types of reports such as technical, business, public health/medical, etc.
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