Informal Report Following an Investigation

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Informal Report Following an Investigation

The information needs of business must of course, be communicated. Because in business time is value, report information must be communicated clearly and quickly. Communication must be crafted to fit the minds of the intended audience. Specifically, it must be adapted. Adapting to the readers means visualizing the readers, determining who they are, what they think, what they know about the subject, what their education levels are, and how they think. Then it involves writing to fit these readers.Of all the tasks you must perform as a report writer, communicating the report story to those who should receive it is the most critical. Regardless of how well you work on other parts of the report, unless you communicate the results of your efforts, you fail in your objective. And communicating is not easy!Make sure your reading is caught up in both the text book and in NelsonReading this material will help you see the big picture. In other words it will help you understand the end product, that of the informal report. It is not enough to communicate your research results you also need to be able to present the results objectively, placing them logically and consistently in time, and structure and relate them so they tell a coherent story. All of these elements along with your interesting writing style will help you in developing an effective report.If you have been following directions you have already read the OXY Case and considered what research questions you have. Read though what you need to do in this document and list your research questions.As a business person you will be asked on many occasions to write reports. Remember that reports can take many forms but for this assignment we are going to be writing an informal report. Remember: The basic ingredient of your report will be events, records and the various forms of data and authoritative research that are communicated in the process of conducting business in any organization.In any business organization, your satisfactory performance of work will usually be enough to communicate your intellectual capacity for low-level promotions. For promotions of high-level assignments, however, you will have to impress your superiors with your intellectual capacity for these assignments. With that said remember you are writing the report to the executive committee and your supervisor who is president of OXY Chemical.Remember that although we are not turning this information in this time you still need to take time to consider the following before you attempt to put your outline together and develop your research questions:In order to develop the problem statement we first need to examine the situation, determining if the problem requires an analysis or a reporting of information, answering a set of questions and writing the problem statement, identifies the problem and helps the report writer create clarity concerning the direction that the report will need to take in order to tell the story.Now write the problem statement. A full understanding of the purpose will assist you as the report writer in developing a clear and meaningful report. (This is for your information only and you will not be turning in a purpose statement. However, you will want to include this in your report as it is the Why you are writing the report. It is important for you and your readers to be clear about why you are writing the report.)Before starting an audience analysis, the purpose of the message must be clearly developed for the report writer. For example, does the writer want to inform, to persuade, or to present an analysis of a situation or problem? The purpose of the message must be extremely clear to the writer. If the purpose of the message is not clear to the writer, the writer will not be able to convey that purpose to the reader.What is the purpose of the report?The audience analysis allows the report writer to determine how to approach the reader(s) for the best results. (You will not turn in an audience analysis to me. However, it is important that you go through the process of determining your primary and secondary readers in order to write a good report).When conducting an audience analysis, the writer determines the following:Once the audience analysis is complete, the writer will have a better idea of whether to approach the reader or readers using a direct or indirect logical arrangement of content. In addition, the writer will have a better understanding of the basic content to include, the language level to aid the reader(s) in understanding the content, and the formality necessary to satisfy the reader(s) and company custom.Considering all of these questions develop your audience analysis.Report writers want to assure their audience that they have done their homework and that they know what they are talking about.Remember this will improve your credibility with your readers.You should want to know how other companies handle drug testing and the kinds of policies they have concerning drug testing for current and new employees. Additionally, information about how other companies handle drug testing will provide you with language that may help you connect with your readers. If you havent already done so, some sites you will want to visit are listed below.These are just a few sites that might prove helpful to you. You should use caution as you research and choose only sites that are credible.When we research we need to include a Bibliography as part of our report. Your Bibliography should be on a separate page and follow the last page of your report before the Correction Guide. See the example of a Bibliography on pages 246 through 248.It is easy to make a case for writing this report in the direct format but remember though the executive committee doesnt have a lot of time to read still this is a sensitive topic. You are concerned that some of the members of the committee are not especially receptive to the idea of drug testing based on their concern about unionization. Your credibility as the writer is not especially low but it is not high either because of your position. It is clear from the case that the executive committee will want to see your analysis so you will be writing the report in the indirect format. An informal report organization that is written in the indirect format includes much of the same information as a formal report. However, the introduction tends to be shorter and headings are used only for the factors. An informal and indirect organization is illustrated below:Readers look at your documented evidence and valid reasoning and conclude that what you say is true or not! Never underestimate your audience. If you include even one suggestion of deceptive wording or of fraudulent reason they will be suspicious of your entire report. This is the reason you, as the report writer, are seeking to be painstakingly objective. This is the only way you can maintain your credibility. For this report we will define objective writing as writing in the third person.Relationships develop between readers and writers when we use first- and second-person. However, for this assignment we want to remember that we are writing the report to our supervisor and to high ranking managers. According to the text book, Writers using first or second person, the argument goes, may not be a through in testing a truth as they would if they were using third person.

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