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11: Writing and Completing Reports and Proposals
11-1
CHAPTER 11:
WRITING AND COMPLETING REPORTS AND PROPOSALS
CHAPTER SUMMARY
visual aids and how to design effective visuals. The final section focuses on Step 3, Completing
Reports and Proposals. Writers are introduced to the various components of reports: revising
reports and proposals, producing formal reports, producing formal proposals, proofreading
reports and proposals, and distributing reports and proposals.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Writing Reports and Proposals
Adapting to Your Audience
Drafting Report Content
Drafting Proposal Content
Writing for Websites and Wikis
Drafting Website Content
Collaborating on Wikis
Illustrating Your Reports with Effective Visuals
Choosing the Right Visual for the Job
Tables
Line Charts and Surface Charts
Bar Charts and Pie Charts
Data Visualization
Flowcharts and Organization Charts
Maps, Drawings, Diagrams, Infographics, and Photographs
Animation and Video
Designing Effective Visuals
Completing Reports and Proposals
Producing Formal Reports and Proposals
Distributing Reports and Proposals
Chapter Review and Activities
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TEACHING NOTES
Writing Reports and Proposals
Adapting to your audience involves the following:
Adopting the “you” attitude
Striking a balance between overly informal (which can be perceived as trivializing
to meet with their approval.
To make your tone less formal, speak to readers in the first person and refer to yourself as I.
To make your tone more formal:
Use the impersonal journalism style.
Emphasize objectivity.
Take into account that communicating with people in other cultures often calls for more
formality in reports.
As with other forms of written business communication, reports and proposals have three main
sections:
Introduction (or opening)
An effective introduction accomplishes four major tasks:
is important
Previews the main ideas and the order in which they’ll be covered
The body presents, analyzes, and interprets the information gathered during your investigation
and supports recommendations and conclusions.
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An effective close has three important functions:
Summarizes your main points
Emphasizes the benefits to the reader
To help readers find what they’re looking for and stay on track as they navigate through your
documents, follow these three steps:
Write clear headings and subheadings.
Use plenty of transitions to tie together ideas and show how one thought is related to
another.
Make the process as easy on yourself as possible by taking advantage of all available
productivity tools.
The general purpose of any proposal is to persuade readers to do something, so your writing
Demonstrate your knowledge.
Provide concrete information and examples.
Writing for Websites and Wikis
When drafting online content, keep these additional points in mind as well:
Take special care to build trust with your intended audiences because careful readers can
be skeptical of online content. Make sure your content is accurate, current, complete, and
authoritative.
layers of detail—letting readers choose to see those additional layers if they want to.
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learning more if they want to.
Write effective links that serve for both site navigation and content skimming. Above all
else, clearly identify where a link will take readers; don’t force them to click through and
To be a valuable wiki contributor keep these points in mind:
Let go of traditional expectations of authorship (including individual recognition and
control).
Encourage all team members to improve each other’s work.
rest of the wiki.
Before you add new pages to a wiki, figure out how the material fits with the existing content.
Illustrating Your Reports with Effective Visuals
Well-designed visuals:
Enhance the communication power of textual messages
Can replace text in some cases
Given the importance of visuals in today’s business environment, visual literacy—the ability (as
Even without any formal training in design, being aware of the following six principles will help
you be a more effective visual communicator:
Consistency
Contrast
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numerical values or detailed textual information.
Tables:
Systematically arrange data in columns and rows
Are ideal when the audience needs information that would be either difficult or tedious to
handle in the main text
When preparing a table, be careful to:
Document the source of the data below the table.
Line charts illustrate trends over time or plot the relationship of two variables. They depict trends
Bar charts portray numbers with the height or length of its rectangular bars, making a series of
Compare the size of several items at one time.
Show changes in one item over time.
Conventional charts and graphs are limited in two ways:
They can represent only numeric data.
Most types show only a limited number of data points before the display becomes too
cluttered to interpret.
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A diverse class of display capabilities known as data visualization overcomes both of these
Flowcharts illustrate a sequence of events from start to finish; flowcharts are indispensable when
illustrating:
Processes
they interrelate.
Maps are useful for showing location, distance, points of interest, and geographic distribution of
week.
More complex diagrams can convey technical topics such as the operation of a machine or repair
procedures. Diagrams that contain enough visual and textual information to function as
you need to show exact appearances.
Computer animation and video are among the most specialized forms of business visuals. When
they are appropriate and done well, they offer unparalleled visual impact. Product
Position your visuals so that your audience won’t have to flip back and forth (in printed
documents) or scroll (on-screen) between the visuals and the text.
Captions usually offer additional discussion of the visual’s content and can be several sentences
long.
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design choices represent.
When checking completed visuals, proofread them carefully and ask these questions:
Are there any typographical errors?
Is the color treatment consistent?
Completing Reports and Proposals
Revise
Produce
When revising your message, evaluate the:
Organization, style, and tone
subheadings
Tight, efficient writing is especially important with online content.
Report components fall into three categories:
Prefatory parts
Various parts in the report text often run together and seldom stand alone.
Prefatory parts of a formal report may include some but usually not all of the following:
Cover
Title fly
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Table of contents
Give readers all the information they need to grasp the purpose of the scope of the report.
Use high-quality cover stock for a formal report.
The title fly is a plain sheet of paper with only the title of the report on it.
The title page includes four blocks of information:
The title of the report
The letter or memo of transmittal:
Introduces your report on your behalf
Begins by discussing the scope, methods, and limitations of the project
Highlights important sections of the report, suggests follow-up studies, offers details to
The table of contents lists report parts and text headings to indicate the location and hierarchy of
the information in the report.
The synopsis:
reports.
The executive summary:
May be used instead of a synopsis
Is a fully developed “mini” version of the report
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They typically include the following:
Appendixes
Bibliography
Index
An appendix contains additional information for readers who want it; this information is related
Is too lengthy or bulky
Lacks direct relevance
The bibliography is a list of secondary sources consulted when preparing the report.
Some prefatory parts for proposals differ from prefatory parts for other reports, including:
The copy of or reference to the request for proposals (RFP)
A synopsis or an executive summary is often less useful in proposals than in other reports:
In unsolicited proposals, your transmittal letter will catch the reader’s interest.
proposal is solicited or unsolicited:
It follows the pattern for positive messages when the proposal is solicited.
As with other types of reports, the text of a proposal consists of the introduction, body, and close.
The introduction presents and summarizes the problem you intend to solve and your
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The body explains the complete details of the solution: how the job will be done, how it
readers to act.
When you proofread textual material, check for inconsistencies, errors, and missing components.
For physical distribution to a large group, consider a professional courier or package
delivery service to help your document stand apart from the crowd.
For physical distribution to a single person or small group, consider delivering it in
person to answer immediate questions and emphasize recipient benefits.
