Report Writing: Reading/Lecture

Welcome to our eighth module- Formal and Informal Business Reports

We will be spending two weeks in this module- learning about formal and informal business reports. We will go over topics such as types of business reports and writing business reports. The assignment for this module is to practice writing your own informal report by completing an informal report assignment. Please note, this assignment will take longer than previous written assignments as you will need to gather and analyze information in order to complete the assignment. You will be reviewing the Fortune 500 Companies list Links to an external site.to complete the writing assignment. There is not a graded discussion assignment for this module but, there is an optional discussion to post questions about the assignment or, you may post a rough draft of the assignment for feedback. I will be checking the discussion to respond to questions and to give assignment feedback.

A note on creating effective messages (evaluating your messages) -Some of the feedback that I have given you on your written assignments so far has been centered around evaluating your message for effectiveness. This is the third step in the 3 x 3 writing process- reviewing your message. Basically, this means that you have composed a message that will be interpreted and understood by your audience, as you intended it to be. I encourage you to evaluate your assignments before submitting by making sure your message covers the following:

Is all content covered that is in the assignment instructions
Is document well organized, does it flow in a logical manner
Is document correct in formatting, punctuation, grammar, spelling and general mechanics
Is document white space well formatted
Is content easily understood
Have all ideas been expressed concisely (i.e. in few words as possible)
Are the tone and language of the document appropriate (i.e. professional)

Read/Study:

Informal report writing Download Informal report writing, chapter 11 (Guffey text)