Use the report outline that you already developed as a guide when writing the business report.

Executive Summary

The first page of the document should have a report title at the top, and provide an executive summary, which is a paragraph or two that summarizes the report. Use the Introduction that you wrote for the Business Report outline. It should provide enough of an overview of the report so that an executive (who doesn’t have time to fully read the longer document) gets the main ideas and conclusions of your report. Most importantly, the summary should contain (1) the purpose of the report (with minimal background information), (2) what you did (analysis) and what you found (results), and (3) your recommendations. It should not exceed one page.

Report

Page two of the report should contain a title at the top (the same title that you put on the top of the previous page. This is the first page that should actually be numbered (as Page 2).

• The report starts with an introduction section, including a statement of purpose for the report. This paragraph should provide important background information, and should end with a clear “road map” that tells the reader what to expect in the remainder of the report.

• After the introduction, use headings and subheadings frequently to ease the reader’s task. The section headings from the Business Outline you developed should be used. 

• A conclusion paragraph responds to the report’s purpose and how the report has achieved it.  The conclusion  shouldcontain the recommendations.

• The length of the body of the report will be determined by necessity to convey the analysis and conclusions. For the purpose of this assignment, it should range from three to five pages.

• Statistical analysis, including Excel output, should be summarized and presented at the appropriate level, given the audience. As a general rule, most output should be placed in an appendix, and the most important results should be discussed in the text of the report. When a figure or table is important to the discussion, it may be included in the text if it does not take up more than 1/3 of the page.

• Tables and figures should all be labeled. No tables or figures should ever cut across a page.

• References may be cited within the text, in footnotes, or in a separate “References” section.