4.5 Reports
Formal reports are a common genre that you’ll come across in technical communication, and they exist across a wide range of fields, industries, and audiences. Reports address a specific, guiding question or claim and present clear research and evidence in order to address that question or support that claim. Reports can make a recommendation based on the data gathered and presented, or reports can simply present findings and leave recommendations or conclusions up to the reader.
You report will follow what is known as the IMRD structure, which is described in detail below. The major sections of your report are the introduction (I), the methods section (M), the results section (R) and the discussion section (D). While a report genre is fairly consistent in terms of organization, structure, and content, you’ll still need to make decisions based on the rhetorical situation and your audience, their knowledge, their expectations, and their needs. You might be asked to create a report, or you might create one based on your own proposal. Either way, reports are another way to address a problem, and they are purpose-driven and tailored to a specific audience.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
In many ways, a report is the most structured and straightforward genre that you will work with this semester. However, there is still plenty of room for creativity, and there is still a need to consider how your formatting and content choices are concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion.
How is a report related to diversity equity and inclusion? When writing a report, here are some of the decisions you will make that involve diversity, equity, and inclusion:
- You will make decisions about the content and focus
- You will make choices about how to conduct and include research and data
- You will choose how to format your report, including the use of visuals and graphics and headings
As we have discussed already in this text, even seemingly objective, logos-driven, “voiceless” genres are not actually socially or politically neutral. All pieces of communication, every text, contains a point of view. Even when you rely on data to tell a story, you are choosing which data to include and helping your readers to see the story in the data. Your own experience, bias, and point of view impacts your writing: effective technical communicators are aware of these things and work to account for them in their texts.
Just like with proposals, reports rely on research and citation. In fact, reports are built around research: you may collect your own data (empirical or primary research) or you may use data and research previously gathered and published (secondary research). Remember that the way you ask a question determines, in part, what the answer can be. In other words, as you develop questions and choose how to gather and present data, you make choices that impact the conclusions you will reach. As such, it is so important to consider how your worldview and experiences impact the way you frame a question. This is yet another reason that it is important to get feedback and to listen to diverse perspectives during your research process!
As you learn more about the genre of formal reports, keep in mind how you can use research as a way to approach questions with an open mind, and how you can invite other voices and experiences into each part of your research process.
IMRD structure
Most formal reports, including the report that you write for WRIT 3562W, follow what’s known as IMRD structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Each section follows the genre conventions described below, but once again, be sure that you balance genre expectations with flexibility and responsiveness to your purpose and audience.
Introduction
In the introduction, you tell your reader what the report is about: what is your central question or problem or claim? Give the reader, in this section, any background information and research that they might need in order to better understand your focus. For example, if your report investigates an unknown, show your reader, through summarizing and synthesizing relevant sources, that this unknown is important and that it contributes to a problem in some way. Show your reader what past research has done to establish this problem as timely and important, and show how an unknown grows out of the literature.
Your introduction should include, likely towards the end, some forecasting. Tell your reader, directly and explicitly, what they can find in the rest of the report. Consider this section a “mini outline” for your reader. You can be very clear and direct, saying something like:
In what follows, I first describe my methods of interview, survey, and library research, explaining…Then, I share my findings that…Finally, I discuss the significance of my data and recommend…
This type of forecasting helps your reader not only understand how your report is organized, but also what your report covers. Your introduction should be very clear, direct, and concise, and forecasting helps to set the reader’s specific expectations.
Methods
In your methods section, you describe your methods, in as much detail and as clearly as you can, so that your reader has a very clear understanding of how you gathered your data. You can include relevant information (if you conducted a survey, how many people did you survey? How did you find participants? How did respondents complete the survey? What types of questions did you ask? Why was survey appropriate given your research questions?).
Results
This section can be tricky, because you need to display your results without editorializing them. So, do not tell your reader why they are significant or what they mean: instead, very clearly show your reader what you found.
This is a section where visuals are often very important for the reader’s understanding. Many readers can more easily understand data displayed visually than a long block of text describing that same data. Be sure that you do, however, include text along with your visuals, to tell your reader what that visual means or how they need to interpret it. Tell your reader a story about the data (without adding your own opinions or arguments).
Remember that even though this section should not contain an argument or interpretation of results, you are still controlling a narrative for your reader, even as you choose how to display your data or what data points to focus on. Consider ethics and social justice as you create this section: how can you be sure that your results are reflective of what you’ve found? How do concerns of equity and bias and inclusion impact how you frame this section?
Discussion
In this section, you make sense of the results for your reader, you interpret their significance and tie your findings back to your initial question or focus, and you make recommendations and conclusions.
It is important, in this section, to openly acknowledge any limitations in your research: acknowledging limitations not only helps you to build a credible ethos, but it also allows your report to openly address diversity, equity, and inclusion. It prevents you from making any sweeping generalizations based on your findings, and helps you to check your own implicit bias.
Your discussion section often also includes recommendations; keep in mind that you may end up recommending further research based on your findings.
Watch this video on IMRD structure in formal reports.
Front and back matter
In addition to the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections, your reports will contain front matter and back matter.
Front Matter for this report should include the following:
- Cover letter of transmittal
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- List of any figures or tables included in the report
Back Matter for this report may include:
- References of any sources you used, including personal interviews, internet sources, and library sources.
- List of interview questions
- Any other documents relevant to the report
Watch this video on front and back matter in technical reports.
Data displays
Finally, your report will contain visuals, or graphics, to help your reader better understand your content. Graphics are used to reinforce important ideas or to help readers understand complex concepts. When creating graphics, consider the following guidelines detailed:[1]
- A graphic should tell a story
- A graphic should reinforce the written text, not replace it
- A graphic should be ethical
- A graphic should be labeled and placed properly
Writers need to choose the appropriate type of graphic for the data they want to convey. For example, to show different parts of a whole, you would choose a pie chart, but to display a trend, you would choose a line graph. In addition, when dealing with cross-cultural audiences, you need to use symbols that translate internationally.
When using a graphic in your text, make sure that you tell a complete story by explaining to the reader how they should read that graphic. Place it into context and explain the significance. Numbers, without context, mean very little to a reader; what does it mean, for example, that there were 500 cases of influenza related hospitalizations in Minnesota in the last year? What did those numbers look like in previous years, or for other illnesses? What is the total population, for comparison? Make sure that you give complete information so that your reader understands the significance of the data you choose to display. Remember, too, that different types of graphics tell different stories (like the example of a pie chart versus a line graph above). If you wanted to tell a story about the loon population over the last 10 years in Minneapolis, what type of graphic might you use?
For graphics to reinforce, and not replace, written text, be sure that you directly refer to it in your text. For example, you might frame a graphic in your text by including something like:
As illustrated in the graph below, the bison population has decreased by X % over the past 5 years and Y % over the last 10 years. These numbers are significant when compared to the bison population over the last 100 years in Minnesota. Consider the stark differences in sections A and B, below.
After this type of text, above, the graphic should show the reader what they might expect to see, and again explain clearly what it is they are looking at. Another way to integrate a graphic into a text is to make sure that it is clearly labeled and placed appropriately. If you introduce “Figure A” in a paragraph, don’t make the reader wait until the next page to finally see Figure A.
Finally, graphics displaying data should be ethical. Be sure not to mislead your reader when you choose how to display data by including appropriate information and labeling graphics appropriately. For example, if you survey 100 people in Minneapolis and 10 indicated that they are already aware of the ways in which the bison extermination in Minnesota was strategic and aided by technical communication, is it fair to say that “According to a survey, 10% of individuals in Minneapolis are already aware of the ways in which the bison extermination in Minnesota was strategic and aided by technical communication”? Why might this be misleading?
Along with graphics that display data and that help your reader to visualize your research, images can sometimes make a powerful point and be useful in formal reports. Keep in mind, though, that images should not be decorative, but should be illustrative of your research or help the reader to better understand some finding, question, or conclusion that you discuss in your report.
Conducting research
For this report, you’ll need to conduct both primary (empirical) and secondary research, which we also discussion in Section 1, cluster 1.5.
Primary research refers to data that you gather, sort (or code), and analyze yourself. Some methods of primary research that you might use for this report would be conducting a survey or an interview. When you conduct primary research you are gathering your own data to help better understand some unknown or question. For example, if I want to understand how parents in a particular neighborhood in Minneapolis feel about sending their children back to school during a global pandemic, I might create a survey or interview and figure out how to get feedback from parents in that neighborhood.
Take a look at this resource from the Purdue OWL: What is Primary Research and How Do I Get Started?
Read through this resource from the Writing Commons about Empirical Research Methods.
You can read more about qualitative research methods on Writing Commons.
Finally, take a look at these resources on conducting interviews and survey research.
Secondary research refers to using data and research gathered from other authors or sources: in other words, secondary research might be something like library research. Finding sources that help you to understand your research question and summarizing what other authors have found is secondary research. You have very likely conducted secondary research many times already, searching through published sources to answer a question and find information. For example, let’s say you want to know more about what parents across the country have to say about sending their kids back to school during a global pandemic. Rather than creating and conducting your own survey (primary research), you can look for results of surveys that have already been published and made available. Secondary research relies on what other researchers have found and allows us to work collaboratively by sharing findings and comparing data.
Keep in mind that when conducting secondary research it is so important to attribute your information to the source by using accurate citation practices. Take another look at Section 1.5 as you gather research for your formal report.
Reading and Activity: Conducting Research
Think back to the chapter from Young, Becker, and Pike that you read in the activity at the end of cluster 4.4.[2] In this text, they claim that research questions begin with a dissonance, or a felt discomfort, when something that a researcher believes or has experienced does not align with something they read, another claim, or a new experience. They also make a point of saying that there are only problems for someone–problems do not exist out in the world, independent of people, waiting to be discovered. In other words, we identify problems not only from external sources but from internal world views.
Describe one cognitive dissonance–or problem–that you’ve experienced. Try to think of a time when you read an article for a class, or read a post on a relative’s social media account, or heard someone describe something that did not align with your own world views, your own beliefs or knowledge, or your own experience. Describe the dissonance, as best as you can. It might look something like:
“On the one hand, I notice that flowers come in a variety of colors, and that bees seem drawn to certain colors over others. On the other hand, this article I’ve just read claims that bees and all invertebrates are colorblind. If bees are colorblind, what is the biological significance of the colorful nature of flowers?”
From this dissonance, come up with as many researchable questions as you can. Remember that not every question is researchable. Remember, too, that the way you phrase a question will impact how that question can be answered. For example, the question “are bees drawn to certain colors?” leads to a different line of research than the question “are bees colorblind?”
Each problematic situation or dissonance can lead to any number of distinct research questions. Once you have created a list of some questions, pick one and consider how you might go about researching that question. What types of sources would you consult? What type of empirical research would you design?
Alone or with a partner, sketch out a research plan that includes the following:
- A specific empirical research plan that involves gathering your own data through some method like survey, interview, etc. Explain why this method is a good fit for your specific research question.
- A specific library research plan that includes some key words you will use to find existing research, or questions that will help you to guide your library research. Think about what types of sources you will consult, such as which journals, or which disciplines (psychology, ecology, writing studies, etc.). Explain why these key search terms, these specific journals, or these disciplines are a good fit for your question.
- A brief outline of how your formal report will be organized, including what you might include in your Introduction (who is your target audience? what is your guiding question? what background research or information do you need?), your Methods section (what methods are you using and why are they a good fit for your project?), your Results section (what types of visuals or information might you include in this section?), and your Discussion section (what will you include in your discussion that you will NOT include in the Results section?).
