Business Writing. Communicate with clarity and impact.

A business report is a powerful communication tool, and at this one-day course, you’ll learn how to apply timeless report-writing principles to any scenario. Whether you write annual reports or board reports, leadership reports or marketing reports, operational reports or business submissions, your audience is pressed for time. They need to know the key points quickly.

You’ll learn to craft each report around a concise, high-level message, supported by logically ordered support points. You’ll learn how to decide how little or how much technical detail to include, what to do about business jargon, and what to do when new facts force you to change the report angle.

This immersive course builds on the essential learnings of Business Writing Course: Essentials, and can be taken on its own or in conjunction with that course.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• plan your reports after determining their high-level aims:
  • Objectives: establishing whether the report seeks to inform, request or persuade
  • Audience: using our checklist to probe reader concerns  
  • Format: deciding on the ideal word count, page length, visuals, appendices and so on
• use the hierarchy structure (also known as Pyramid Principle or Minto Structure) to organise ideas
• write a concise executive summary that guides the reader through the situation, complication and key question the report will address
• write the report body by planning each sub-section as the answer to a high-level question and using inductive, deductive or combinatorial proof arguments to support your case
• review for plain English usage and correct style:
  • Sentence grammar review
  • Essential punctuation
  • Self-editing tools to try.

Content

Planning

The main planning tools (objectives, audience, context and constraints); establishing the focus of your report.

Organising

Brainstorming the support points; putting your ideas into order; creating content hierarchies that help readers navigate the document.

Writing executive summary

Writing an executive summary with the key components; setting up the body of the document; writing recommendations that align with report objectives.

Writing report body

General approaches for organising your content logically in the report sections; tips for reporting in PowerPoint; tips for slide design.

Troubleshooting

Ensuring a balance of persuasive proof-points; simplifying technical content; writing effectively about numbers; interpreting graphs and other visual elements; writing with tact.

Reviewing

The four stages of review: double-checking for content; keeping a clear, navigable structure; checking for plain English usage; proofreading for style, grammar and formatting.

Intended audience

This course is aimed at mid-career or senior professionals who need to write balanced and thorough reports – either to persuade, inform or request an outcome. If you write simple reports that are less than two pages long, you may want to take the essential Business Writing Course: Essentials first. If you are seeking writing skills that apply to a range of advanced settings and not just reports, consider our Business Writing Course: Masterclass.

Prerequisites

This course assumes good skills in written English, with an understanding of linguistic terms and business processes.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

Learning methods include open discussions, group exercises and individual response to mini tests throughout the day. Several of the exercises are intended for you to plan, organise and draft elements of an actual report you are working on (or a fictional exercise if you prefer).

Materials

Course materials are distributed electronically using Dropbox.

Additional information

You’re welcome to bring any reports-in-progress as the basis for the writing exercises, and for discussion and feedback.

Bring a laptop, or be prepared to write a page or two of handwriting.