Transcript Chapter 20 Informal Reports

Chapter 20
Informal Reports
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Informal Reports
‣ Are fairly routine documents inside all
workplaces
‣ Cover many different subjects and can be
composed in many different forms
‣ Are important in many different workplace
and rhetorical situations
‣ Are typically progress or status reports, lab
reports, directives, and incident reports
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Progress Reports
‣ Update audiences on the status of an ongoing
project
‣ Detail where a project is in relation to its
overall goals and objectives
‣ Allow writers to communicate with
supervisors or managers
‣ Must usually be written during various stages
of a project
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Progress Reports
‣ Provide their audiences with projections
about future activities and expected dates of
completion
‣ Can be written in memo or letter form
‣ Describe the details of a project over time
‣ Provide readers with an honest assessment of
the project’s status
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Lab Reports
‣ Document the procedures, methods, and results of
a lab experiment and explain their significance
‣ Demonstrate the writer’s understanding and
comprehension of the data, the underlying
concepts behind it, and the principles and reasons
behind the experiment itself
‣ Usually cover a great deal of information for their
readers, explaining their purposes, results,
problems, and recommendations
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Lab Reports
‣ Contain a title page
‣ Contain an abstract
‣ Contain an introduction that states objectives
‣ Contain procedures followed during the experiment
‣ Contain results
‣ Contain conclusions
‣ Contain a list of references, if any
‣ Contain appendices that provide raw data
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Directives
‣ Apprise audiences of policies or procedures that they
should know and follow
‣ Are often in email, memo, or letter format
‣ Should discuss the unfamiliar policies in-depth
‣ Often include categories for grouping information
under separate headings
‣ Are forms of instruction and awareness to help
employees do their jobs according to proper protocols
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Incident Reports
‣ Document events in the workplace such as
accidents, emergencies, and problems
‣ Explain to readers what caused the incident
and how the incident is being handled
‣ May also serve as a kind of warning
‣ Can be written as memos, letters, or emails,
but can also be pre-written forms
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Informal Reports
‣ Are written to help solve problems
‣ Are often written as memos, letters, or emails,
or given as oral presentations
‣ Share similar structures, including an
introduction, a body, and a conclusion
‣ Must consider the rhetorical situation and
audience
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.
Ethical Issues
‣ Do not differ all that much from the ethical
issues that arise when composing other kinds of
workplace documents
‣ Are concerned with disclosure, or telling
audiences everything they need to know about a
project, experiment, situation, or problem
‣ Are concerned with accuracy
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 07458. All Rights Reserved.