Writing and researching the “right type” of report
Executive summaries and final comments
The executive summary is a key component of the formal report. Considering our (now) old advice about the importance of beginnings and endings, we might recognize that, because the executive summary is probably the first part of the report that an audience looks at, the executive summary is vital to convincing our audience of the effectiveness of our report. The executive summary is not the place for an opening that seizes the audience’s attention, but it is an opportunity for you to present, in very concise form, the entirety of your argument.
The executive summary comes after the table of contents. The table of contents, especially in a shorter report like this one, is hardly necessary for the reader to find sections of the report. What else does it do? The table of contents acts as an overview of the contents and structure of the report. Think of books: when you’re curious about a book, what do you look at to get a sense of the book? If it’s fiction, you probably look at the blurb, a brief description of the plot meant to get you interested but give nothing away. If it’s non-fiction (or a textbook), you might look at the blurb, but you can only really get a sense of what the author is doing if you take a look at the table of contents.
If (and this is an “if”) readers have moved in a linear way through the report, then they have seen the table of contents before they get to the executive summary. They have some idea of the structure of your argument. The title might give them your conclusion (it should be meaningful, not “A Formal Report” or even “A Formal Report on Good Investments.” The executive summary, as the name suggests, should give “busy executives” everything they need to know to feel informed about your report. Consider as you prepare the executive summary that some readers may read no further. This means that the executive summary is your report in miniature, as RLC point out.
Concision is of the utmost importance in the executive summary. Do not include any unnecessary information or words.
For Assignment #3, should your executive summary be presented in indirect order or direct order? Think back to what we’ve said about direct/indirect approaches in other contexts, and consider the internal, solicited report that you are writing.
A bad executive summary
Take a look at the following example of a bad executive summary. What’s wrong with it?
[1] In this report, I will discuss the communication problems that exist at Rolling Meadows Golf Club. The problems discussed will deal with channels of communication. The areas that are causing problems are internal. Mobile phones would solve these internal problems.
[2] Taking a 15-minute drive on a golf cart in order to find the superintendent is a common occurrence. Starters and rangers need to keep in touch with the clubhouse to maintain a smooth flow of players around the course. The rangers have expressed an interest in being able to call the clubhouse for advice and support.
[3] Purchasing mobile phones for personnel would provide three advantages. First, mobile phones would make the golf course safer by providing a means of notifying someone in the event of an emergency. Second, they would make the staff more efficient by providing a faster channel of communication. Third, they would enable clubhouse personnel to keep in touch with the superintendent, the rangers, and the starters.
[4] During the week, mobile phones can be carried by the superintendent, the golf pro, and another course worker. On weekends and during tournaments, one will be used by the golf professional. The other two will be used by one starter and one ranger. Three mobile phones is the minimum needed to meet basic communication needs. A fourth would provide more flexibility for busy weekends and during tournaments.
[5] Mobile phones can be purchased now from Page-Com for $200 each as part of a special professional package. These phones are durable and easy to service. It is possible that another brand might be even less expensive.
[6] Rolling Meadows Golf Club should purchase four mobile phones. They will cost under $1000 and can be paid for from the current equipment budget.
The executive summary as it stands does contain everything that the executive summary needs to contain, but it also contains much more, both in terms of extra information that belongs in the body of the report (i.e., not here in this overly long executive summary) and in terms of repetition and a lack of concision.
The first paragraph contains one useful sentence that seems to be the thesis of the report: “Mobile phones would solve these internal problems.” The third paragraph makes the argument, explaining how will mobile phones solve the internal communication problems of the Rolling Meadows Golf Club. The information in the second paragraph (the sketch of the problems) is both too specific and unwarranted in the executive summary. The executive summary should state the topic and purpose of the report, but the report’s motivating incidents (the problems) should only appear in the body of the report. Paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 also contain good information, but how the mobile phones will be used, where they can be purchased, and the restated thesis with a number of phones and a budget all belong instead in the body of the report.
What we want to end up with, then, is a core of an executive summary that looks something like this (the exact content depends upon the level of detail in the report as a whole):
Mobile phones would improve internal communication at Rolling Meadows Golf Club in three ways:
phones would make the golf course safer by providing a means of notifying someone in the event of an emergency
phones would make the staff more efficient by providing a faster channel of communication, and
phones would enable clubhouse personnel to keep in touch with the superintendent, the rangers, and the starters.
This structure presents the argument in a logical way: an action should be taken for the following reasons. Overall, the key in the executive summary is to communicate the main argument of the report as clearly and concisely as possible.
Final comments
We have covered a lot of ground in this course, and your textbook covers a lot of ground we haven’t discussed. To conclude, I would like to return to the three laws of professional communication that we looked at when the course began. Remember that these three laws are predicated upon a law without which no professional communication should be taking place.
Have a purpose! You have to know why you’re communicating in order to communicate effectively. That has not been a problem in this course, where the assignments clearly give you your purpose, but sometimes a purpose is difficult to pinpoint. Before you begin to plan, remember to decide on your communication goals. Remember that the whole process is recursive: your goals can change.
Let’s revisit the three laws.
1. Adapt to your audience. As we have seen in every aspect of the course, keeping your audience in mind is vitally important. Your audience determines your medium, your design, and your words.
2. Maximize the signal-to-noise ratio. Do everything you can to minimize distractions from the message. Noise is a lack of concision, poor design, visuals that are difficult to understand, a lack of awareness of cross-cultural communication, etc. As we said at the outset, if something isn’t necessary or shouldn’t be there, eliminate it. Noise is also errors: errors can distract the audience from the message itself, but as we have said about ethos, once the audience begins to see errors in the message, the audience may start to lose confidence in the author of the message. Your lack of credibility becomes another kind of noise.
3. Use effective redundancy. Repeating yourself isn’t always a bad thing, and effective redundancy is more than just repetition. Effective redundancy means that an audience can read just your executive summary and receive the whole of your message. Effective redundancy means a visual learner can look at a visual and grasp your argument without, perhaps, reading all of your words. Effective redundancy means showing the structure of your argument visually through tools like tables of contents and sub-headings and other design elements.
At the end of the course, you will see better than at the beginning how these laws exist in a hierarchy. We can’t begin to communicate effectively if we don’t have a purpose or goal. We also can hardly begin without analyzing our audience. Once those two things are in place, we keep them in mind as we strengthen the signal and consider how to double and triple the most important parts of our message.
Good luck with Assignment #3!
The post Writing and researching the “right type” of report Executive summaries and final appeared first on essayfab.