Report writing is one of the most difficult topics to teach, as students’ real-life reports can range from just informal notes in an Excel document to very formal 500-page analyses of corporate strategy, with industries, companies and even departments of the same company varying wildly in what they expect. However, there are things which such reports have in common which are eminently teachable, including in ways which are far more stimulating than the topic of reports would seem to suggest.
What students need to know about writing business reports
Characteristics of most kinds of business reports which distinguish them from other kinds of writing and students will need to be able to notice and reproduce include:
- a title (in bold and/ or underlined, often a rather boring one like “A Report on…”, sometimes after a more interesting part, as in “Our Future: a Report on…”)
- section headings (in bold and/ or underlined, often including typical headings like “Background" and “Conclusions/ Recommendations”)
- the purpose of the report/ reason for writing the report
- descriptions of how the data was obtained (“Research was conducted…”, “… based on…”, etc)
- data described in both words and numbers, including generalising language (“The vast majority of respondents…”, “Approximately half of…”, “Generally,…”, “the average respondent…”, etc)
- describing changes/ trends (“Demand has flattened out, but…”, “This recovery was short lived”, etc)
- quite a lot of passive voice and other impersonal language (“This was carried out…”, “Conclusions reached include…”, etc, although that can vary depending on the level of formality and/ or the readers)
- a range of language to describe the past, present and future (“The company was founded…”, “Sales have decreased”, “We are struggling to…”, “… is predicted”, etc)
- language of recommendations (“The only solution seems to be to…”, “Management therefore should consider…”, etc)
- linking words for adding extra information (“furthermore”), contrasting (“In contrast”), giving reasons (“in order to”, “so that”), etc
- referring to other parts of the report (“As shown above,…”, “The last of those is the solution which…”, etc)
- use of numbered lists and/ or bullet points
Typical student problems with writing business reports
Common issues with students’ finished reports include:
- unsuitable section headings (too long, too general, not matching the section’s contents, etc)
- inconsistent formality
- starting a new paragraph with every new sentence
- paragraphs that are too long, especially sections that should be split into two or more paragraphs
- bad use of the data (too many exact figures, only general descriptions where the actual figures would be useful, too much repeating on language to describe figures such as “approximately” in almost every line)
- overuse of the passive voice (“It was increased by…”, “This was happened… X”, etc)
- problems with language to describe different times (mixing up Present Perfect and Past Simple, “will” and “going to”, etc)
- mixing up words which link two sentences and words which link two things in one sentence (“And,… X”, etc)
- mixing up linking words with different meanings (“In contrast” vs “On the contrary”, etc)
- problems with referencing (mixing up “it” and “this”, using “respectively” wrongly, mixing up “the latter” and “the last of those”, etc)
- too much use of bullet points or numbers
How to present writing business reports
The best reports to use are fairly short and can be understood even by non-specialists, but are sufficiently similar to student’s longer and more specialist reports to provide useful guidance and language. A good source is model answers for BULATS Writing Part Two. Before students look at what characteristics the report has and what useful language is used, they could:
- see if they agree with the recommendations and the reasons given for it
- see if they agree with the data (for their town, company, industry, etc) and then see if their opinions mean that they would change the given conclusions or not
- write a conclusion based on the predictions etc in the report and then look at the real conclusion
- discuss how similar or different that report is from what they would write
Another good way to start is with a task they can do mainly through their general knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary, before then looking at the report-specific things that are in it. Tasks like this include:
- putting a split text back together (= a jigsaw report)
- adding missing words such as prepositions to gaps in the report
- putting verbs into the right tenses
- finding one language mistake in each sentence, each line, each section, etc
- adding headings to the sections
How to practise writing business reports
Good writing practice should combine both practice of report writing that is relevant to their careers, and practice of the language that you have studied (even if their kinds of reports wouldn’t include it, as such language can also be useful outside reports). It unfortunately doesn’t really work to ask students to bring in their own true business reports, due to issues like being confidential, far too long to give feedback on, or written in note form that makes grammar correction difficult. Instead, you could give tasks that could be easily adapted to their various kinds of business, departments, etc. This can be done with topics such as increasing efficiency and improving job satisfaction, based on made-up but realistic-sounding data from their own businesses and sectors. They can then compare their content and formats in the next class, commenting on similarities and differences.
It can also be useful for students to work together to improve model answers which have common issues in, e.g. a thirty-line report which has one word which should be changed on each line.
You can also combine discussing good report writing with practice of useful recommendations language by students to talk about how to write good reports, including how to deal with typical problems with report writing.
For more game-like activities, see the article 6 Fun Writing Business Reports Activities.