Your challenge is to design reports so that these readers encounter your key facts and conclusions, no matter how much of the report they read or in what order they read it.

They don’t read reports straight through: they may start with the executive summary, skip around, and probably not read every page. This duplication has to do with how people read reports. When you analyze the design of a technical report, notice how repetitive some sections are. A standard report format is like a familiar neighborhood. Reports are usually read in a hurry-people are in a hurry to get to the information they need, the key facts, the conclusions, and other essentials. The advantage of a required structure and format for reports is that you or anyone else can expect them to be designed in a familiar way-you know what to look for and where to look for it. Specifications for reports involve layout, organization and content, format of headings and lists, the design of the graphics, and so on. Technical reports have specifications as do any other kind of project. Organizations very often have their own “stylesheets” on which all organizational document designs are based, so make sure the design presented in this chapter is acceptable. The same is true if you are writing a technical report in a science, business, or government context.

If you are taking a technical writing course, ask your instructor for any design specifications she has for your documents. This chapter shows you one traditional design. Technical reports (including handbooks and guides) have various designs depending on the industry, profession, or organization.

Parts of a document