Report Writing

4. Findings. The facts, arranged under headings, numbered where there are many. No opinion here. This is the longest section.

5. Conclusions. What the findings mean. Drawn from the findings and nothing else.

6. Recommendations. What should be done, in order of priority, each one specific enough to be acted on and, where possible, saying who should do it and by when.

7. Signature block. Name, designation, and date.

8. Appendices, where needed. Tables, questionnaires, lists of persons interviewed.

The discipline that separates a good report from a bad one. Findings and conclusions must not be mixed. "The library closes at 6 p.m." is a finding. "The closing hour is too early for students who have classes until 5.30" is a conclusion. "The library should remain open until 8 p.m. on weekdays" is a recommendation. Candidates who run all three together lose marks even when every fact is right.

Language of a report

Impersonal. "It was found that" rather than "I found that", unless the report is a personal visit report, where the first person is acceptable.

Past tense for what was done and found; present for what is the case; conditional for recommendations.

Factual. Give numbers, dates and names. "Many students complained" is weak; "Thirty-one of the forty-two students interviewed complained" is a finding.

Short paragraphs, headings, and numbering. A report is consulted, not read from start to finish, so a reader must be able to find one item.

No adjectives of feeling. "Shockingly inadequate" belongs to a speech. A report says how inadequate, in figures, and lets the reader be shocked.

A model report

Note. This is the length and shape to aim at for a thirteen-mark question.

REPORT ON THE VISIT TO THE CITY CIVIL AND SESSIONS COURT, MUMBAI, ON 8 SEPTEMBER 2026

1. Terms of reference

This report is submitted to the Head of the Department of Law, St. Xavier's College of Law, in compliance with the instruction of 26 August 2026 requiring every student of the first year to visit a court, observe proceedings, and report on the working of the court and on what was learnt.

2. Procedure

The visit was made on 8 September 2026 between 11.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. by a group of thirty-two students accompanied by Dr S. Rao. Proceedings were observed in three courts. The cause lists displayed outside each court were examined, and the Registrar's office answered questions on filing procedure for twenty minutes at 3.30 p.m.

3. Findings

3.1 Sitting hours. The courts sat at 11.00 a.m., rose at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 2.45 p.m.

3.2 The cause list. The list for Court Room 14 carried sixty-two matters for the day. Of these, forty-one were listed for directions or for the filing of replies and were disposed of within two or three minutes each. Nine were adjourned in the absence of counsel.

3.3 The matter observed at length. A summary suit for the recovery of Rs 4,80,000 on three dishonoured cheques was argued for about forty minutes on an application for leave to defend.

3.4 The physical arrangement. The court room seats approximately sixty persons. Litigants stood in the aisle and outside the door, and the proceedings were inaudible from the doorway.

3.5 The Registrar's office. Filing is now accepted both physically and through the e-filing portal. The officer stated that a plaint is scrutinised for defects before numbering and that defects are the commonest cause of delay at the filing stage.

4. Conclusions

4.1 The greater part of a judge's list is procedural rather than argument, which is not evident from the study of reported judgments alone.

4.2 Adjournments in the absence of counsel are a substantial cause of the length of proceedings.

4.3 Public access to the court room is limited in practice by the size of the room rather than by any rule.

5. Recommendations

5.1 That the visit be arranged for a full day rather than a half day, so that at least one matter may be followed from the opening of the argument to the order.

5.2 That students be given the cause list in advance, so that a matter may be chosen for observation before the visit.

5.3 That a visit to the filing counter and the record room be made a fixed part of the programme, since the procedural stages seen there are not covered in the class room.

Anjali Fernandes

First Year, B.A. LL.B. (Five Year), Roll No. 27

12 September 2026

What loses marks

No terms of reference. The report floats: nobody knows who asked for it or what its scope is.

Opinion inside the findings. The commonest fault.

Recommendations that do not follow from anything. Every recommendation must be traceable to a finding.

Vague recommendations. "Steps should be taken to improve the library" is not a recommendation. It names no step, no doer and no date.

Continuous prose with no headings. A report that cannot be navigated is an essay in the wrong clothes.

No date or signature. A report is a document and is dated and signed.

A worked answer

Question. "Write a report on a court visit organised by your college." Thirteen marks.

The plan, and it takes two minutes. Title with the place and the date. Terms of reference, two sentences. Procedure, three sentences with times and numbers. Five numbered findings, each one fact. Three conclusions drawn from those findings. Three recommendations, each specific. Signature and date.

The single thing that most improves such an answer. Invented numbers. Sixty-two matters on the list, forty-one procedural, nine adjourned, thirty-two students, Rs 4,80,000. An examiner reading a hundred scripts sees "many cases were heard" ninety times. Figures are what a report is made of.

Quick revision

A report is factual, structured, impersonal, written for a reader who must act, and ends in something that can be done.

Eight parts: title, terms of reference, procedure, findings, conclusions, recommendations, signature and date, appendices.

Terms of reference fix the scope, and omitting them is the commonest structural fault.

Findings are facts, conclusions are what they mean, recommendations are what to do. Never mix the three.

Kinds: informational, analytical, investigative, progress, survey, periodical, field or visit.

Language: impersonal, factual, numbered, short paragraphs, no adjectives of feeling.

Test yourself

1. How does a report differ from an essay? An essay argues or explores for a general reader and may end in a question. A report is written for a named reader who has to act, is arranged in headed sections rather than continuous prose, uses an impersonal voice, and ends in conclusions and recommendations.

2. What are terms of reference and why do they matter? They state who commissioned the report, when, and what was referred for examination. They matter because they fix the scope, so that the report cannot fairly be criticised for omitting a matter that was never referred to it.

3. Distinguish a finding, a conclusion and a recommendation with one example each. A finding is a fact: the library closes at 6 p.m. A conclusion is what the facts mean: the closing hour is too early for students whose classes end at 5.30. A recommendation is what should be done: the library should stay open until 8 p.m. on weekdays.

4. Name five kinds of report. Informational, analytical, investigative or inquiry, progress, survey, periodical, and field or visit reports, of which the last is the kind a first-year law student most often has to write after a court visit or a legal aid camp.

5. Why do figures improve a report? Because a report exists to support a decision, and a decision cannot rest on impressions. "Thirty-one of forty-two students interviewed complained" is a finding that can be weighed, while "many students complained" is not.