PROGRAMME 

Introductions and objectives

Exercise: reviewing a sample report

Today’s topics

Why ‘professional’?

Identifying report objectives

Understanding the reader

Planning the report 

• research
• approval
• production

The report writer’s checklist

Structure: how to design the most effective report structure

• a benchmark structure
• executive summary
• contents pages, indices, footnotes
• the main body
• structuring an argument
• appendices

Style: identifying and choosing style 

• choosing the right word
• choosing the right voice
• readability: how to manage and measure it
• jargon

Data: how to choose and present it

• clarity, precision and accuracy

Final exercise: editing a sample report

Open forum

Action planning.