General superstructure of reports general Reports

General Reports

General superstructure of reports: The general superstructure of reports contains six elements, one for each of the six basic questions.

1. Introduction

2. Method of obtaining facts

3. Facts

4. Discussion e.

5. Conclusions

6. Recommendations

1. Introduction:

In the introduction of a report, you answer your readers’ re readers may take many pages, in What is the problem that your report will help to solve? What activities you performed, towards solving that problem? How your audience can apply your information in their own efforts towards solving the problem?

2. Method of Obtaining Facts:

It also suggests to your readers, how they can gain additional information on the same subject. For example, if yo s technique, your account of your method may help others design similar projects.

3. Facts:

Your facts are the individual pieces of information that underline and support your conclusions and recommendations. If your report for example, Ayesha’s is based upon interviews, your facts are the things that people told you. If your report is based upon laboratory, field, or library research, your facts are the verifiable pieces of information that you gathered.

4. Discussion:

Taken alone, facts mean nothing. Therefore, an essential element of every report, you prepare will be a discussion in which you interpret your facts in a way that is significant to your readers. It is important to remember that your readers count on you not only to select facts that are relevant to them, but also to discuss those facts in a way that is meaningful to them.

5. Conclusions:

Like interpretations, conclusions are general statements, based on your facts. However, conclusions don’t simply focus on interpreting the facts but also on answering the readers’ question. i.e. “ How are those facts significant to us?

6. Recommendations:

Just as conclusions grow out of interpretations of the facts, recommendations grow out of conclusions. They answer the reader’s question, “If your conclusions are valid, what should we do?” Depending on many factors, including the number and complexity of the things you are suggesting, you may state your recommendations in a single sentence or in many pages.

A note about summaries:

Many longer reports share another feature i.e. they are preceded by a separate summary of the report overall. Such summaries are often called ‘Executive Summaries’ because they usually are addressed to decision-makers.