Report Writing
Chapter Seventy-Five
Syllabus topic 4.1.1, and MU's own course objective: to write "letters, reports, precis"
Pages 355 to 358 of 406
In one line
A report is an orderly account of something examined, written for somebody who has to act on it, and its defining feature is that findings and recommendations are kept apart from opinion.
In the wording a student can write in an examination: a report is a formal, factual and structured account of an event, an inquiry or a state of affairs, prepared for a particular reader and ordinarily ending in conclusions and recommendations on which a decision can be based.
Report against essay against letter
| Essay | Letter | Report | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | To argue or explore | To communicate with one person | To inform a decision |
| Reader | General | The addressee | A named person or body who must act |
| Shape | Continuous prose | Salutation to signature | Headed sections, often numbered |
| Voice | Personal | Personal | Impersonal, usually third person |
| Ends with | A conclusion | A courteous close | Findings and recommendations |
The line to remember. An essay may end in a question. A report must end in something a reader can do.
Kinds of report
By formality. An informal report is a memorandum or a letter with headings, a page or two, used inside an organisation. A formal report is a document with a title page, contents and numbered sections, used where the matter is substantial or will be circulated.
By purpose.
| Kind | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Informational | States facts without recommending | Attendance figures for a term |
| Analytical | States facts, examines them, and recommends | Why registrations fell, and what to do |
| Investigative or inquiry | Establishes what happened in a specific incident | A committee report on a complaint |
| Progress | Says where a piece of work has reached | Fortnightly report on a moot preparation |
| Survey | Reports what was found by asking people | A survey of hostel facilities |
| Periodical | Made at fixed intervals as a routine | The annual report of a company |
| Field or visit | Reports what was observed at a place | A court visit report, which most first-year students must write |
And the kind a law student will actually write first. The court visit report and the legal aid camp report, because both are part of clinical work in this course.
The structure of a formal report
Learn these eight and you can build any report.
1. Title. Specific. Not "Report" but "Report on the Working of the College Library, July to December 2026".
2. Terms of reference, or the authority for the report. Who asked for it, when, and what they asked to be examined. One or two sentences. This is the section students omit, and it is the one that makes a report a report: it fixes the scope, so that nobody can complain that a matter was left out when it was never referred.
3. Procedure, or method. How the facts were gathered: records examined, people interviewed, visits made, dates. This is what allows the reader to judge how much weight the findings deserve.
The rest of this chapter
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The rest of this subject
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