Outlines

 

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

Who Should Attend

Those who focus on continually improving what they do by tracking their quality and reviewing it.

Duration

5 Days