Annual Reports That Work  

Offers suggestions for creating excellent annual reports.

Worth, Carol. Intercom (2000). Articles>Writing>Reports

Business Reports that Demand Attention  

Walinskas offers tips for improving business reports.

Walinskas, Karl. Intercom (2001). Articles>Writing>Reports

Feminizing the Professional: The Government Reports of Flora Annie Steel      

Despite being raised in a culture that denied her access to formal education and employment, Flora Annie Steel became an Inspector of Female Schools in the Punjab, India, in 1884.  Her inspection reports for the occupying British government of India are the focus of this study, which examines texts within the context of British imperialism and late-nineteenth century report conventions. The study concludes 1) that cultural expectations for women in imperialism influenced Steel's response to the genre and 2) that the report genre may have been fluid within imperialism, crossing boundaries between professional and  government writing pertaining today.  The study suggests that, historically, we need to study these genres of writing from the perspective of economic and political expansion as genres of imperialism.

Sutcliffe, Rebecca J. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Writing>Government>Reports

Hiding Humanity: Verbal and Visual Ethics in Accident Reports  

Located at the critical intersection of technology and humanity, technical communicators must always try to avoid human injury and promote sensitivity to the needs of human beings. The reporting of human injuries and fatalities in accident reports, however, often strips victims of their humanity and hides the tragic human consequences of technological failures from individuals trying to devise appropriate public policy, establish effective safety regulations, and modify or abolish dangerous industrial processes—government officials, company executives, labor representatives, community activists, and ordinary citizens. Technical communicators have the rhetorical ability, the requisite editorial and graphic skills, and the moral responsibility to bring humanity to the verbal and visual display of information.

Dragga, Sam and Daniel W. Voss. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Writing>Ethics>Reports

How to Write a Report Without Getting Lynched

You put forth your best effort to explain to the stupid sods exactly how and where they screwed up, then they have the temerity to not appreciate your fine efforts. Here's how to write a report that will cause change, instead of uproar.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2001). Articles>Usability>Reports>Technical Writing

Lack of Annual Report Analysis on a Social, Political and Historical Basis

One area of rhetorical analysis of business writing that seems to be neglected is the analysis of annual reports on the social, political, and historical level. An admittedly-brief four hour review of on-line technical journals and academic articles on the subject of annual report analysis failed to produce a single article directly related to this subject. The only articles that I did find dealt with the analysis of contemporary annual reports on a financial basis. However, my research did uncover an article on the teaching of the conventions of business writing, such as annual reports, and an article on reconstructing the image and narrative in distressed organizations.

Remali, Peter. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>Reports

Looking into the Future: The Role of the Technical Communicator in On-Line Report Design  

Corporations are rapidly moving vast quantities of information onto intranets. In order for that information to be usable by corporate decision makers the format of traditional reports needs to change. Corporate reports must reflect information needs and not just provide a dump of available data. Their design must change from static dumps of information to an on-line highly adaptable format that connects relevant information into an integrated whole. Part of making the change means careful audience and task analysis to determine what reader¡¯s information needs. Technical communicators are uniquely skilled to handle this phase of on-line report design.

Albers, Michael J. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Writing>Reports>Online

Review: Reporting Technical Information  

When I first picked up Reporting Technical Information, I thought from the title it was going to be a primer on writing technical reports. Instead, this book turned out to be a basic, though somewhat better than average, textbook on technical writing.

Coleman, Colleen. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>Reports>Technical Writing

Short Reports: How To Write Routine Technical Documents

This document introduces two basic principles of technical communication -- meeting the reader's needs and using the inverted pyramid. It also describes the section headings typically found in a technical report.

Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2001). Articles>Writing>Reports

Some Advice on Writing a Technical Report

The Technical Report (TR) is a common written form through which computer scientist communicate their findings. Each TR should have a focused topic that is developed logically along some clearly identified perspective. The major components of a TR are title, author information, date, keywords, informative abstract, body, acknowledgments, references, and appendices. Typically, the body is organized into four sections: motivation, methods, results, and discussion. This document offers advice and specifications for writing TRs.

Sherman, Alan T. UMBC (1996). Articles>Writing>Reports>Technical Writing

Some Advice on Writing a Technical Report

The Technical Report (TR) is a common written form through which computer scientist communicate their findings. Each TR should have a focused topic that is developed logically along some clearly identified perspective. The major components of a TR are title, author information, date, keywords, informative abstract, body, acknowledgments, references, and appendices. Typically, the body is organized into four sections: motivation, methods, results, and discussion. This document offers advice and specifications for writing TRs.

Sherman, Alan T. UMBC (1996). Articles>Writing>Reports>Technical Writing

Special Topics of Argument in Engineering Reports  

As a discussion of writing-across-the-curriculum programs in universities, his essay focuses on disciplinary discourse within academic settings. Nonacademic discourse also occurs with particular conventions, purposes and institutions; such discourse can be subjected to similar study.

Miller, Carolyn R. and Jack Selzer. North Carolina State University (1985). Articles>Writing>Reports>Engineering

A Structured Process for Transforming Usability Data into Usability Information  

Much research has been devoted to developing usability evaluation methods that are used in evaluating interaction designs. More recently, however, research has shifted away from evaluation methods and comparisons of evaluation methods to issues of how to use the raw usability data generated by these methods. Associated with this focus is the assumption that the transformation of the raw usability data into usability information is relatively straightforward. We would argue that this assumption is incorrect, especially for novice usability practitioners. In this article, we present a structured process for transforming raw usability data into usability information that is based on a new way of thinking about usability problem data. The results of a study of this structured process indicate that it helps improve the effectiveness of novice usability practitioners.

Howarth, Jonathan, Terence S. Andre and Rex Hartson. Journal of Usability Studies (2007). Articles>Usability>Reports>Technical Writing

Technical Reports for Quick Reader Comprehension  

A technique to conserve the time of scientists and engineers in report preparation, assure prompt reporting, and provide reports that meet user needs.

DITA Users (1961). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Reports

Ten Tips on Writing White Papers  

Offers ten suggestions for technical writers wanting to improve the quality of their companies' white papers.

Barefoot, Darren K. Intercom (2002). Articles>Writing>Reports

Writing in the Presence of Disaster: A Case Study of an Aviation Investigation Report  

The experience of a documentation company in working on a major aircraft accident investigation report.

Thurston, John. Writer's Block (2005). Articles>Writing>Reports>Case Studies

"Sort of Set My Goal to Come to Class": Evoking Expressive Content in Policy Reports    

This article documents a novel yet theory-informed process of preparing research reports designed for government officials who are concerned with creating adult-literacy policy. The authors use cartoons that include verbatim dialogue from the transcripts of interviews with research participants with low functional literacy. This dialogue, which depicts positive messages about the participants’ moral character, strengths, and resilience, is set against photographic backdrops of the participants’ lived environment to give a sense of real people in a real place. Inclusion of such images is an attempt to change policy-report readers’ thinking about adult literacy because creative visual communication offers ways to approach this challenge that text alone cannot.

Sligo, Frank and Elspeth Tilley. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Writing>Reports>Rhetoric