#32021
Toward a Taxonomy of Corporate Reporting Strategies 
Studies of corporate reporting that focus on information disclosure do so primarily from a mandatory, financial perspective owing the decision to the rationality of corporate actors. Yet, social and environmental disclosures"often reported voluntarily"are increasing in importance because of their impact on a firm's performance and perceived value. Likewise, disclosure decisions are made based on managerial choice, often being communicated for a specific strategic purpose. The aim of this article is to illuminate the importance of voluntary disclosures as an aspect of corporate reporting and to integrate the deterministic and behavioral elements of disclosure decisions. A taxonomy of the disclosure process, activities, tasks, forms, types, and strategies is provided to add to our understanding of the additive and corrective nature of proactively disclosing information either to provide context to existing disclosures or to use information in a preventive manner.
Clark Williams, Cynthia. JBC (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Reports
#29238
Toward an Expanded Concept of Rhetorical Delivery: The Uses of Reports in Public Policy Debates
Preparing students for civic engagement requires new knowledge about the uses of documents for advocacy and social change. Substantial social change results from repeated rather than from single rhetorical acts. Reconsideration of the rhetorical canon of delivery suggests expanding the concept beyond its present connection to publication (visual design, medium) to a rhetorical situation comprehensively defined. Delivery may take place over time and embrace a web of activities including field work, updates, and interconnections with other publications.
Rude, Carolyn D. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>TC>Reports>Rhetoric
#28024
Towards the Design of Effective Formative Test Reports 
Many usability practitioners conduct most of their usability evaluations to improve a product during its design and development. We call these 'formative' evaluations to distinguish them from 'summative' (validation) usability tests at the end of development. A standard for reporting summative usability test results has been adopted by international standards organizations. But that standard is not intended for the broader range of techniques and business contexts in formative work. This paper reports on a new industry project to identify best practices in reports of formative usability evaluations. The initial work focused on gathering examples of reports used in a variety of business contexts. We define elements in these reports and present some early guidelines on making design decisions for a formative report. These guidelines are based on considerations of the business context, the relationship between author and audience, the questions that the evaluation is trying to answer, and the techniques used in the evaluation. Future work will continue to investigate industry practice and conduct evaluations of proposed guidelines or templates.
Theofanos, Mary Frances and Whitney Quesenbery. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Reports
#29145
#11882
Have you ever wondered about reports of usability tests? How much time does it take to write one? What should you keep in mind when designing and writing the report? Here are some rules of thumb that I use.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Usability Interface (1997). Articles>Usability>Reports
#15081
UsabilityNet: Usability Report Formats
It is advantageous to use a standard format for writing up usability reports. The reasons for this include: your clients will be familiar with the layout of information in your reports; the structure acts as a checklist in case you've missed something out; reports from different labs are comparable; there is a common consensus as to what should appear in a report.
#13643
User-Friendly Usability Reports: The Effect of Praise on Product-Improvement Efforts By Teams
A largely uncharted issue in usability is the effect that a particular style of usability report has on the motivation of the team whose work the report addresses. Recent work in cognitive science and social psychology offers evidence of an intimate interconnection among thought, emotion and motivation, with implications for usability reports as well as other forms of technical communication. In this preliminary study, fifteen triads of adult workers arranged materials on a prototype Web site for forty-five minutes. They were then subjected to negative, positive-and-negative, or neutral feedback conditions. Measures for motivation were post-treatment time on task, as well as individual self-reports on attitudes.
Missimer, Constance A. University of Washington-Seattle (2002). Books>Usability>Reports>Rhetoric
#28380
Webに関連する統計データの可視化：対数グラフと垂れ下がるテール
ウェブサイトへのアクセスログを線形グラフにするだけでは、データの大切な部分を見落とすことになりかねない。ときには、一歩進んだグラフ化にもやってみる価値があるものだ。
Nielsen, Jakob. U-Site (2006). (Japanese) Design>Web Design>Reports>Log Analysis
#13844
Writers and Their Maps: The Construction of a GAO Report on Sexual Harassment
This article examines a 1994 General Accounting Office (GAO) report on sexual harassment at U.S. service academies to determine how power structures affected the report writers’ rhetorical choices. Employing postmodern mapping theories, the article identifies what is valued and devalued in the report’s contents. Then it describes Congress’s reaction to the report and speculates on the report’s impact on public discourse and subsequent social action. It offers postmapping theory as a way of understanding the relationship between discourse and power in policy reports.
Cargile Cook, Kelli. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>Reports>Sexual Harassment
#13837
The periodic engineering report can become a source of conflict and frustration when North American engineers collaborate with colleagues abroad. To overcome such difficulties, technical companies may hire writing consultants, who then take on the additional role of cultural interpreters, helping the partners bridge differences in both the practice of engineering and the language and culture of each country. As such a writing consultant, I worked with a Canadian engineering company, its Russian contractors, and a Russian translator to analyze the sources of difficulties in their reports. The language of the reports was English, but differences in tone as well as reader expectations about organization, format, and appropriate content caused misunderstandings among the collaborators. Contrastive rhetorical analysis helped to identify problems in both the conception of the report as a document and the translation of particular text.
Artemeva, Natasha. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Rhetoric>Reports
#29911
Writing in the Presence of Disaster: A Case Study of an Aviation Investigation Report
The investigation of fatal aircraft incidents has gained in importance and in the attention of the public. This paper presents the experience of one documentation company in working on a major aircraft accident investigation report. The paper covers the general approach the company took, the challenges it encountered, the standards it applied, the strategies it developed, and the lessons it learned.
Thurston, John. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Reports
#29193
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
#32289
Linguistic Bias in Personnel Selection
The present research examines how hiring committees strategically use language abstraction to collectively account for their decision to hire a job applicant over the others. In addition, the authors investigate how work interdependence between single members of hiring committees and applicants and common affiliation to the same work organization affect the language used to write individual reports on job candidates. Results of the first study show that selected applicants were described with positive terms at a higher level of abstraction and negative terms at a lower level of abstraction. The second study supports the selection linguistic bias in individually written reports and demonstrates that members of hiring committees describe interdependent applicants and those belonging to their group with negative terms at a lower level of abstraction than other applicants. The implications of the findings for the wider personnel selection context are discussed.
Rubini, Monica and Michela Menegatti. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (2008). Careers>Interviewing>Reports>Language
#34152
Programmatically Creating SSRS Report in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
The process of programmatically creating the SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) tabular report is described. You will be creating a very simple report using the provided code. The approach is to introduce the programming by creating the three parts of a report: connection, dataset, and layout. Excerpt from the book, "Learning SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.'
Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Packt (2009). Articles>Information Design>Databases>Reports
#34369
How to Write a Technical Report
This presentation describes the standard structure of a lab report and provides a methodology for successfully producing such a report. It includes a description of the generic structure of a report and variations on this theme.
Jobling, C.P. SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Writing>Technical Writing>Reports
#34822
Designing a Successful Group-Report Experience
Report assignments and collaborative assignments can both be fraught with risk. Report projects, if notstration) and/or can leave students wondering what they are supposed to have learned—all while creating a major grading burden for the instructor. Poorly planned group projects can cause similar difficulties, with the added danger of creating interpersonal stress in the student groups. Yet for many reasons, the report assignment is the perfect choice for the collaborative project. Because of its extra length and complexity, the report enables several students to contribute meaningful research, writing, and document design decisions to one product or a related set of products. If the project goes well, each student will learn important lessons both about report writing and about teamwork. To maximize the likelihood that the project will go well, the instructor must think through a wide range of variables and decide, based upon his or her learning objectives, what the features of the project will be.
Rentz, Kathryn, Lora Arduser, Lisa Meloncon and Mary Beth Debs. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Reports
#34882
Many engineering undergraduates receive their first and perhaps most intensive exposure to engineering communication through writing lab reports in lab courses taught by graduate teaching assistants (TAs). Most of the TAs' teaching of writing happens through their comments on students' lab reports. Technical writing faculty need to be aware of TAs' response practices so they can build on or counteract that instruction as needed. This study examines the response practices of two TAs and the ways the practices shifted after the TAs began using a grading rubric. The analysis reveals distinct patterns in focus and mode, some reflecting best practices and some not. It also indicates encouraging changes after the TAs started using the grading rubric. The TAs' marginalia became more content focused and specific and, perhaps most important, less authoritative and more likely to reflect a coaching mode. The article concludes with implications for technical writing courses.
Taylor, Summer Smith. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Engineering>Reports
#34887
Crossing National and Corporate Cultures: Stages in Localizing a Pre-Production Meeting Report
Localization includes translating, explaining, and adapting a document for use in a specific culture. This article presents the case of a form for reporting the findings and decisions of pre-production meetings held during development of electronic products. The need to localize such a document may seem less obvious or critical than the need for sales documents like manuals, but this case demonstrates the same cultural requirements and, furthermore, the requirements of corporate differences. To meet local needs, the comprehensive preparation that localization requires should follow specific methods in each step of a process corresponding to the general writing process, like the stages defined in common technical writing texts. The deliberate use of an effective writing process to localize documents will improve results.
Major David L. and Akihiro Yoshida. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Localization>Reports
#34929
Crossing National and Corporate Cultures: Stages in Localizing a Pre-Production Meeting Report
Localization includes translating, explaining, and adapting a document for use in a specific culture. This article presents the case of a form for reporting the findings and decisions of pre-production meetings held during development of electronic products. The need to localize such a document may seem less obvious or critical than the need for sales documents like manuals, but this case demonstrates the same cultural requirements and, furthermore, the requirements of corporate differences. To meet local needs, the comprehensive preparation that localization requires should follow specific methods in each step of a process corresponding to the general writing process, like the stages defined in common technical writing texts. The deliberate use of an effective writing process to localize documents will improve results.
Major, David L. and Akihiro Yoshido. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Documentation>Reports>Localization
#35129
"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
