8.10 Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- Reports have a wide variety of purposes and styles. The three major types are progress reports, recommendation reports and summary reports.
- Formal reports usually have an executive summary, an introduction, a body (which might be separated into background, methods, results, and analysis), a conclusions/recommendations section, references, and an appendix.
- The amount of revision you’ll do will depend on the importance of the document.
- Many students see revision as just checking spelling and grammar, but revision is about re-thinking the piece. The first draft if for you, so that you can get your thought down, and the second is for your audience. When you revise, think about your audience.
- When you revise, start with higher-order concerns. Don’t be afraid to reorganize or even cut pieces and start over.
- After you’ve revised the big picture pieces, focus on editing (looking for punctuation, spelling and grammar mistakes), and then proofreading (taking one last look at your almost-finished document to make sure all the changes were made).
- Remixing involves taking a source and turning it into something new. In the workplace, you’ll often remix the work of your coworkers.
Attribution
“Chapter 11: Key Takeaways” and “Chapter 14: Key Takeaways” from Business Writing For Everyone by Arley Cruthers are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
