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Chapter 8 Reports: Informing and Explaining
Chapter 8
Reports: Informing and Explaining
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Overview
• Looks at the genre of reports—documents designed to inform and explain
• Reports range from simple to complex, and take many different formats
• Gives strategies to select, organize, and deliver information
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The Genre of Report Writing
• Reports inform and explain
• They range in purpose and audience, depending on the context
• Reports take an objective, factual tone
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Why do reports takean objective tone?
• The focus of a report is not on the writer,but on the content.
• The tone is then objective, factual, formal.
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Examples of Reports
• News reports
• Research articles in professional journals
• Organizational fact sheets
• Brochures
• Informational Web sites
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Research and Reports
• Reports are often written to answer a question.
• They involve gathering information anddoing research.
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Readings
• Two articles on the Mentally Ill 1. A short piece from the Associated Press that ran
in many local papers
2. A longer article from the New York Times
• The Sentencing Project, “New Incarceration Figures: Growth in Population Continues”
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More Readings
• Barbara Kruger, “I Shop, Therefore I Am”
• Milton Glaser, “Dylan”
• Daniel Pauly and Reg Watson, “Counting the Last Fish”
• Edward R. Tufte, “PowerPoint is Evil” (can be used with Ellen Lupton’s “PowerPoint Do’s and Don’ts” in Chapter 21)
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An Informational Web Site
• The Triangle Factory Fire gives background about “one of the worst industrial disasters of the twentieth century,” (269).
• http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire
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Writing assignment
• Your assignment is to write a report. There is a list of six options on pages 275-276.
• The list includes: news report, fact sheet, explanatory essay, article, brochure, andWeb site.
• Your instructor will let you know whether your class will be doing this particular assignment, and provide you with additional guidelines.
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Web sites for news
• New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/
• Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
• CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/
• Time, http://www.time.com/time/
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The Writing Process
• The last part of the chapter takes you through the writing process; notice the use of questions to prepare you for doing research.
• There are suggestions to help you organize and present the information you find, as well as suggestions to guide peer review and revision.
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Student Sample
• See the essay by Michael E. Crouch (“Lost in a Smog,” pages 281-287).
• Note the comment that he is following the typical layout of an article in Scientific American; he uses a headline, photos, sidebars, and information boxes.
• See the list of questions, page 287.
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Student Companion Website
• Go to the student side of the Web site for exercises, chapter overviews, and links to writing resources for this chapter:
http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e
