I conclude this 25-part series on report writing, covering 23 report types that fall into 3 broad categories. I looked 9 descriptive, 9 analytical, and 5 persuasive reports. While each is unique in some respects, they all share common features. The talking points spread throughout the series (e.g., problem, cause, options, solution) should prove useful in reflecting on the world reports when designing them and establish your own standards. With this thought in mind, I offer these finals tips and cautions:
- Use the talking points as suggestions for getting started, not for following inflexibly.
- Move, add, or delete talking points to suit your organizational culture and purpose.
- Mix and match talking points as needed, for instance, borrowing from the conference review for the course review or even the staff appraisal.
- Create new reports based on the templates I've created in this series. Notice I've omitted job accomplishments for descriptive reports, industry reviews for analytical reports, and white papers for persuasive reports; however, this series gives you a lot to work from if you need to write these or other reports not in the series.
The reports in this series:
Descriptive Reports
- Meeting Reports
- Incident Reports
- Investigation Reports
- Inspection Reports
- Procedural Reports
- Scopes of Work
- Test Reports
- Course Reviews
- Conference Reviews
- Contractor Appraisals
- Staff Appraisals
- Self-Appraisals
- Audit Reports
- Root-Cause Reports
- Business Forecasts
- Project Plans
- Project Status Reports
- Project Completion Reports
