Formal Business Report

Option 1: Imagine you work for a national employment/placement agency. Your clients range from the first-time job seeker to the executive level. You specialize in working with adults who have some work experience and who have just completed a BA or BS degree from your alma mater, Saint Leo University. The FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work for List comes out each year in mid January. Your supervisor thinks it might be useful and has asked you to prepare a report.

Specifically, she wants to know:

• Can establishing a working relationship with any or some or all of the companies on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list help you do your job better?

• Are any, some, all of these companies potential employers for the Saint Leo’s graduates you help find jobs?

• Are there specific companies that the agency should target to establish an exclusive relationship with? Which ones and why?

Format for the Formal Report: Remember your audience as you plan, write, and complete your report. Your audience is under no obligation to read your report: It is up to you understand your audience well enough to craft a document that they will want to read. Completing Reports and Proposals. In other words, use these chapters of the text as your style guide! Other valuable resources located in your text are Appendix A: Format and Layout of Business Documents, and Appendix B: Documentation of Report Sources. Use graphics (tables, charts, pictures, etc.) to assist you in illustrating your findings. Remember, there is some real validity in the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words. Make certain to refer back to the section in Chapter 12 on Producing and Integrating Visuals as you prepare your report. Your report will be graded for: content, format, style, writing mechanics, and spelling

PREFATORY PARTS

• Title page

• Letter or memo of transmittal. (Depending on which option you pick, you will need a letter or a memo. Letters go to individuals external to your organization, and memos are for internal correspondence.)

• Table of contents and list of illustrations

• Executive summary or synopsis (In academic writing, this is called an abstract.)

BODY/TEXT

 • Introduction (must include problem/purpose, scope, background, limitations, organization)

• Body (this is where you present your findings, discuss them, and interpret them, and what do you recommend).

• Close (what where the key points? This is your call to action, what you want done.) \

SUPPLEMENTARY

• Appendix, if needed (material referred to but not included in the text which you want your audience to see)

 • References (listing of your sources)

How long should it be? To cover the assignment, you should plan on needing 4-6 pages of written text. This is really not very long if you include pictures and graphics in your report (strongly encouraged).

What format should be used? Typically use one-inch margins all around, single-spaced. Use the reference material in the appendices located in the back of the textbook for guidance regarding format. Pages need to be numbered (note the conventions for prefatory pages) and can go either at the bottom or top of the page. Use a font size of between 10 and 12 for the text. Use headers!!

How do I cite materials? The standard for business is APA format. Use the reference material in the appendices located in the back of the textbook for in-text citation and list of reference formats. Good online sources for citing Internet materials in APA format can be found at APAStyle.org (http://apastyle.apa.org).