How to write a report: two different formats, for exams and for the office

One word, two different papers

People who search for "how to write a report" are of two kinds.

One is the exam candidate, who has to write a news report in the answer script, and whose marks depend on following a fixed format.

The other is the office worker, who has to submit the month's figures or the account of an incident at work, and whose paper will be read by someone with no time.

The formats are different, and if you apply the rules of one to the other, both turn out badly. So first decide which one you are writing.

The exam news report

In an answer script the structure itself carries the main marks, and the structure is a familiar one.

Part	What it holds
Headline	The gist of the event, short and specific
Reporter's identity	Staff reporter or a name, the place and the date
Opening	The main point of the event in the first paragraph
Account	What happened, where, when, how, who is involved
Statement	A quotation from someone concerned, if there is one
Conclusion	What the situation is now, or what is needed
Sender and receiver	Sender's name and address at the bottom left, receiver on the right

The first paragraph is the most important. By the rule of journalism, the main point of the event is there, and the remaining paragraphs bring less and less important facts. This arrangement is called the inverted pyramid, and it is what is expected in the script too.

Where marks are lost:

1. No headline, or one so general that the event cannot be understood
2. Leaving out the reporter's identity, place and date
3. Starting the first paragraph with an introduction, so the main point is in paragraph three
4. Not writing the sender and receiver part
5. Mixing in your own opinion, which does not belong in a news report

Many people do the last one. A report tells the facts, it does not judge. A sentence like "This is very sad" belongs to an editorial, not a report.

The office report

Here the format changes, because the reader changes. In a script, the examiner reads all of it. In an office, the person who reads it wants to make a decision from the first page.

The order is usually like this:

1. Cover: title, date, who wrote it, which version
2. Executive summary, one page
3. Contents, if the report is more than five pages
4. Introduction and scope: what was looked at, what was not
5. Findings
6. Recommendations
7. Appendix: method, detailed tables, sources

Keep the main part within fifteen pages and put the rest in the appendix. If you put in the middle what will not be read, what needs to be read is not read either.

Write the summary last

From the name it sounds like something for the start, but it is written after everything else. Because you cannot summarise what you have not written yet.

On one page, within three hundred words, three things:

• The situation in two sentences
• Three to five main findings, each with a number
• The recommendations, each with who will do it and by when

A simple way to test it: if someone reads only this one page and stops, can they make a decision? If they can, the summary is working.

And what not to write here: a description of the structure of the report. Sentences like "The first part of this report discusses" are no use to the reader, they only take up space.

The heading is the message

This is a small change that changes the quality of the whole report.

Weak heading: "Sales analysis"

Good heading: "The rate of customers returning fell by half after the price rise"

The first says what the section is about. The second says what the section proves. If someone reads only the headings, from the second kind of report they get the whole story.

The same rule applies to the first sentence of every page. Keep one main point per page.

Numbers, tables and charts

Numbers: in the text, round them off, and in the table give them exactly. And always give one with a comparison, like last month or the target. A number standing alone says nothing; "double last month" says something.

Whether to write Bangla or English digits, decide once and keep it the same in the whole report. Changing in the middle catches the eye.

Tables: numbers aligned to the right, decimal places equal, the unit once in the heading, and the total row in bold.

Charts: one message per chart. Write the conclusion in the title, write the unit on the axis, and give the source below. Avoid 3D charts, pies with more than four slices, and charts with two axes. Colour the part that is the main point and keep the rest grey.

How to write recommendations so they work

The sentence most often written in the recommendations part is the most useless one: "More research is needed on this."

A working recommendation has four things: the first word is a verb, how much cost or effort it needs, what result is expected, and who will do it by when.

Weak: "The quality of customer service needs to be improved."

Good: "Add two people to the call centre from the first of next month; the aim is to bring the time to resolve complaints down from two days to one day. Owner: Operations."

Write them with numbers, and put the most urgent first.

Do not drop the scope

Along with the introduction, write in one line what was looked at and what was not, and the period the data covers.

This is not for self-defence, it is for the reader. The person who reads it should not, by mistake, make a decision that this data cannot support. Write the date the data was taken too, because if someone reads this report three months later, they need to know it.

If you write a report with AI

AI does the structure and the language well, but you have to be careful in three places.

First, you have to give the facts. If you do not give numbers, it may put in numbers that look reasonable, and in a report a made-up number is the most dangerous thing. This is the commonest place where AI says wrong things with confidence. Paste your own figures, then ask it to write.

Second, say which format you want. If you say "write a report", you usually get the office format. For an exam, write "news report, with sender and receiver".

Third, read the summary yourself. Most readers will read only that one page, so if there is a mistake there, the other fifteen pages cannot save anything.

In the BanglaCodes chat, if you give your figures and ask for a report, a full report is made with tables and charts, and you can download it as a PDF.

How to ask well is written separately in the rules for writing a good prompt.

Questions and answers

How long should a report be? In an exam script, what the question says, usually about one page. In an office report the main part stays within fifteen pages, and what is needed beyond that goes into the appendix. A long report gets no attention and just lies there.

Are the summary and the introduction the same thing? No. The introduction says what the report is about and what was looked at. The summary says what the findings and the decision are. Someone who stops after the summary should still be able to get on with the work; someone who stops after the introduction knows nothing.

Can I give my own opinion in a news report? No. A news report tells the facts, it does not judge. If an assessment is needed, it can come as a quotation from someone, not as your own sentence.

Should I write Bangla or English digits? Either, but the same in the whole report. Changing in the middle looks untidy, and if the numbers in the text do not match the table, the reader stops.

How do I write the source? Briefly below each table and chart, with the source and the date the data was taken. A list at the end of the report is even better. A number without a source asks the reader to just trust you, and the person who will decide does not do that.

Should I write bad results too? Yes, and that is the job of a report. A report that only has good news is not believed a second time. If you give a bad result with the cause and one recommendation, it is no longer a complaint, it becomes work.

What if I have to give the same report every month? Make the format once and reuse it; only the numbers and the summary change. When the arrangement stays the same month to month, the reader can compare, and that is the real value of a regular report.

Can people tell a report was written with AI? It shows if the language is too tidy or every paragraph is the same length. The bigger problem is elsewhere: if the numbers are not your own, you cannot answer when a question comes up in the meeting.

In short

• First decide: an exam news report or an office report
• In a script, the marks go on structure: headline, reporter's identity, sender and receiver
• In an office, the first page is the real thing, and it is written last
• In the heading, write the conclusion, not the topic
• Every number with a comparison, every chart with one message
• In recommendations: a verb, cost, expected result, owner and date
• Write in one line what was not looked at, too