When I teach report writing, I often ask for a show of hands in response to this question: “Who’s here because they love writing reports?”
I don’t get many takers. The usual response is eye rolling and some nervous chuckling.
For many people, report writing is high on the list of Must-Do’s I Wish I Could Avoid, right next to chores like getting an oil change and filing expense reports.
The more I engage in report writing, however, the more I’ve come to appreciate—even love—the activity.
At the moment, I seem to be living and breathing the report-writing process: I’m wrapping up one 10,000-word report for an organization that does community-engaged research to drive social innovation, starting another of similar length, and gearing up to teach report writing to an engineering firm.
It seems the perfect time, then, to share with you some thoughts about why I relish the challenges and opportunities of report writing. I hope my reflections make your reporting tasks easier and more enjoyable!
Here, then, are three reasons I love report writing (and why you might learn to love it too):
- Report writing brings order to chaos. I think one of the reasons I love writing in general is that it temporarily endows a person with god-like qualities. In most creation myths, a deity or group of deities brings the world into being by turning formlessness into form. That’s exactly what a report writer does.
That’s also the requirement that most report writers miss. Over the years, I’ve reviewed hundreds of reports, of various shapes and sizes, and the number one flaw I’ve noticed is weak structure.
While many organizations hope that templates will eliminate this issue, they seldom solve the problem. That’s partly because many templates are poorly designed, built to merely sort content into categories rather than to arrange it into a hierarchical, easy-to-navigate structure.
The number one secret of an effective report is that it shapes ideas into a form that makes logical sense for the reader. In many cases, that’s not a chronological form (“We did this, then we did that” or “This happened, then that happened…”) but a form based on key ideas.
Reporting isn’t just about sharing information. It’s about communicating ideas. Which brings us to the next reason for loving the process of crafting a well-formed, readable report. - Report writing makes sense of things. In the Christian creation myth, God forms the world and makes humans in God’s own image. One of the signs of Adam’s likeness to his divine maker is his power to name the animals.
God makes the world, and then Adam labels it, through the power of language. That power is also what drives impactful report writing.
We tend to think about reporting as documenting a topic, event, or process, but it’s really about making sense of it. If all you’re doing is recording what happened, then you’re not doing much for your audience. They want to understand the implications of what has occurred.
That means answering the questions on your reader’s mind and giving them a mental framework for grasping the how and why of whatever you’re describing. - Report writing envisions possibilities. Reports are requested or initiated for many different reasons. And, yes, one of those reasons could be to create what I call a “CYB document”—an explanation to “cover your behind” (or the behind of your organization or unit).
Most reports are, however, created to help an audience solve a problem or make a decision about an opportunity. As such, they usually include some kind of recommendations. And that’s the part I find most exciting.
A strong report doesn’t just document what happened and then list suggested next steps. That may be your typical report, but it’s not the kind of report you want to create as someone trying to mobilize knowledge.
Reports that move people and knowledge provide clear, actionable recommendations that paint a persuasive vision of what’s possible. They take the reader on an illuminating journey that helps them understand what happened, interpret it (make sense of it), and then turn what they’ve learned into action.
Those are just three of the reasons I love report writing. In my experience, a well-executed report can be one of the most versatile, valuable tools in a knowledge mobilizer’s portfolio of communication products.
If you're looking for help creating a report, or you want to sharpen your report-writing skills, then let's chat! Just send me a DM, and we'll find a time to connect.
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