Types of Reports

There are two main categories for reports, regardless of their specific function or type. An informational report informs or instructs and presents details of events, activities, individuals, or conditions without analysis. An example of this type of “just the facts” report is a police accident or a workplace incident report. The report will note the time, date, place, contributing factors, like weather, and identification of those involved. It does not establish fault or include judgmental statements. You should not see, for example, “Driver was falling down drunk” in a police accident report. Instead, you would see “Driver failed sobriety tests and breathalyzer test and was transported to the station for a blood sample.” The police officer is not a trained medical doctor and is therefore not licensed to make definitive diagnoses but can collect and present relevant information that may contribute to that diagnosis.

The second type of report is called an analytical report. An analytical report presents information with a comprehensive analysis to solve problems, demonstrate relationships, or make recommendations. An example of this report may be a field report by a Center for Disease Control (CDC) physician from the site of an outbreak of a virus, noting symptoms, disease progression, steps taken to arrest the spread of the disease, and recommendations for the treatment and quarantine of subjects. Table 7.1 below lists many of the most common types of technical reports and their functions.

Analytical reports have specifications as do any other kind of project. Specifications for reports involve layout, organization and content, format of headings and lists, design of the graphics, and so on. The advantage of a required structure and format for reports is that you or anyone else can expect them to be designed in a familiar way—you know what to look for and where to look for it. Reports are usually read in a hurry. People want to get to the information they need—key facts, conclusions, and other essentials—as quickly as possible.

For example, you might find reading a journal articles none too stimulating. Nevertheless, journal articles and reports are important and carefully crafted. The rigid format and objective style lend them a universal utility so readers from various disciplines can readily access and use the complex information. Your professors will confirm that busy academics rarely read reports and articles linearly—many readers cut right to Results and Discussion or look over the tables and figures before reading anything, then jump around to those bits of the report that are most relevant to their needs. Often, their goal is to rapidly exclude information they do not want or need.

The same can be said for any type of report. It is especially important for you to write reports in a fashion acceptable for your audience and topic, where they can easily locate the desired information. As you prepare technical reports for your classes, you have built- in template in which to put your information, and you can plug in to a tried and proven template that has evolved over many years. Understanding and conforming to this template will help you to organize complex information as well as meet your reader’s specific needs.

When you write technical reports, notice how repetitive some sections are. This duplication has to do with how people read reports. They may start with the executive summary, skip around, and probably not read every page. Your challenge is to design reports so that the readers encounter your key facts and conclusions, no matter how much of the report they read or in what order they read it.