Report Writing Skills

REPORT WRITING SKILLS

Technical Report Writing and Writing Effective Business Proposals

The Course on Business Writing, Technical Documents and How to Write Clearly for Maximum Impact The ability to communicate clearly is an important skill. Many of today’s inter-personal communication take place through writing. Targeted, concise and persuasive text can make all the difference when trying to convince someone of your ideas, services or products. Achieving results through proposals, reports, technical texts, emails, memos, etc. depends on your ability to successfully persuade your readers and help them understand your ideas and act on them.

This comprehensive course focuses on all aspects of writing business texts, documents, reports, etc. that are used regularly in most jobs and professions. It covers the full life cycle of writing, starting from understanding the audience, collecting material, planning the structure, organising, writing clearly, styling, presentation and the general strategy required to make the text more convincing and targeted.

The course contains a variety of detailed sessions, each focusing on different aspects of this life cycle. Each session provides step-by-step guidelines on how to approach the subject and is followed by exercises where delegates can immediately practice the skill.

Research shows that the best way to learn is by example. All sessions contain speciďŹ c examples that show exactly how recommended guidelines can be implemented in practice.

Examples of good & bad text are carefully constructed to show what works & what doesn’t, so delegates can quickly apply those guidelines while participating in training exercises & later to real-world scenarios.

Packed with carefully constructed examples of good and bad text that illustrate clear, targeted and concise writing guidelines

Learning Outcome By the end of this course the delegates will be able to:  Setup your report writing strategy based on established principles, your audience and your own preferred style  Structure your report systematically using an efficient and established logical layout  Appeal to readers using direct and indirect approaches and convince them of your cause  Use powerful tools to significantly increase your creativity while putting your content together to prepare a report  Present your report with appropriate styles to achieve maximum impact without causing distraction  Deliver your content using a clear and effective language which is easy to read, understand and act on  Use a high impact and clear writing style that delivers your true meaning as quickly and effortlessly as possible  Write a condensed, yet effective summary of your report that highlights the importance of your report and encourages further reading  Write titles that make your readers excited about your content and encourage them to read the rest of your report  Phrase your sentences efficiently to persuade others for your product or idea

Course Content In this highly practical course delegates will learn

REPORT WRITING STRATEGY      

How people read and what are the implications for an author?

What do you need to consider before writing?

What is the ideal structure of a technical writing or report?

How to think of your purpose to make your writing activity easier?

What is the ideal tense to use in report writing?

When should you write in first-person, second-person or third-person?

PERSUADING READERS     

What are the common persuasion tactics employed by authors?

What are the differences between direct and indirect approaches to persuasion?

When should you go for global view in contrast with the details?

When should you explain complex content in contrast with simple content?

How to sequence your content based on common dimensions, such as urgency, importance and chronology?

COLLECTING AND ORGANISING CONTENT

 What is the most effective way to prepare content for writing reports?  How to exploit the visual power of your brain through mind maps and organise your content?  How to increase your creativity using simple yet powerful tools and techniques?

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STYLING AND PRESENTATION  How to use headings?

 How to increase the visual impact of your presentation to get maximum effect?  How to use tables, graphs, bullet points, margins, etc. to enhance your message?  What are the most effective styles such as fonts, font sizes, effects, paginations and line spacing? How to use these styles to make your message clearer, without distracting the reader through overuse of these effects?

INCREASING THE IMPACT THROUGH LANGUAGE

 How to deliver your message as quickly and clearly as possible?  What are the common techniques employed by professional writers in delivering an engaging text?  How to make your message viral?  How to avoid vague writing that can lead to misunderstanding?  How to use technical terms to serve your message?  What is an ideal tone to convince a reader and keep him engaged?  How to sequence your statements to make them more convincing?

USING CLEAR ENGLISH

 How to increase the clarity of your English using simpler sentence structures?  How to use action verbs?  How to warm up the reader before explaining potentially complex topics?

HIGH IMPACT SUMMARIES

 How to structure executive summaries?  How to plan summaries to get best results?  Which areas need more focus and are read more frequently?

WRITING TITLES THAT GRAB ATTENTION

 How to use proven formulas used by mass media to create engaging titles?  How to create catchy or descriptive headlines?

SELLING YOUR IDEAS

 How to write to sell?  How to structure your text to convince your audience of your cause?  How to appeal to emotions?

THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND REPORT WRITING TRAINING Many people find writing difficult. Some will do anything to avoid writing reports. This could largely be due to bad approach. Many people believe that writing starts from a blank page. Although possible, this is not an ideal approach as it is quite difficult to think of the whole material in your head and organise it before dumping it on paper.

The solution is to use a systematic approach. Deal with the subject using tools that allow you to divide it into smaller, more manageable chunks. Research shows that once people are able to structure their thoughts and imagine the desired flow of their text, they find writing vastly easier.

This course aims to make writing easier for delegates by helping them focus on each of these smaller tasks individually and master them. The collection of these skills would then allow the delegate to write any text of any length with ease while increasing its impact and persuasiveness. Examples, in particular bad examples, are a great a source to help people understand what works and how specific techniques are used in practice.

The course relies on these examples along with their associated exercises in line with accelerated learning principles to teach delegates as many related topics as possible in the given time.

Writing Convincing Proposal AFTER COMPLETING THIS COURSE, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO:

 Explain the key difference between reports and proposals.  Identify the six essential questions that you must answer before beginning any proposal.  Explain the importance of establishing your credibility with your readers.  Explain the importance of presenting a proposal that solves a problem for your readers.  Write a covering letter that quickly establishes context for the attached proposal.  Construct a title that includes your major recommendation and benefit.  Write an executive summary that includes the problem, the consequences, your solution, benefits for the reader and a call to action.  Write a background section that provides the necessary context so that readers will understand and appreciate the solution you're proposing and the benefits that it brings.  Explain the importance of including a section early in the document that clearly sets out the details of the solution you're proposing and does so in plain language.  Distinguish between features, advantages and benefits, and convert features and advantages to benefits.  Include cost information in a format that is accessible to both accountants and non-accountants.  Employ a modular format that easily enables you to add additional sections, as needed, on such topics as risks, schedules, training, equipment and legal issues.  Employ plain English to enhance your clarity and reputation.  Employ highly effective persuasion strategies suggested by research in the field of social psychology.  Engage in effective lobbying behaviour that predisposes your readers to be amendable to your written proposal.

Content 1. Proposals are not reports 1

1.1 How are reports and proposals different?

1.2 A review of the essential report-writing questions

2. Phase 1: Decisions and preparations 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

Overview: seven key questions you must answer What's my goal?

Current situation: What problem or opportunity are my readers faced with?

Deliverables: What results will I deliver?

Solution: How will I deliver these results?

Experience: Why should my readers believe that I can deliver these results?

Costs: How can I justify the cost of these results?

BeneďŹ ts: Why should my readers want these results?

Summary of the pre-writing process

3. Phase 2: Assembling the proposal 3.1 Covering letter 3.3 Executive summary 3.5 Glossary of terms 3.7 Results and solution 3.9 Cost summary 3.11 BeneďŹ ts 3.13 Optional components

3.2 Title page 3.4 Table of contents 3.6 Background 3.8 Experience 3.10 Financial details 3.12 Risks assessment & weaknesses

4. Plain English

4.1 What is plain English?

4.3 Key 2: Impress them with brevity 4.5 Chapter summary

4.2 Key 1: Impress them with simplicity 4.4 Key 3: Impress them with your style

5. The politics of persuasion 5.1 5.2 5.4 5.6

The six tendencies that lead to 'yes' Reciprocity Social validation Authority

5.3 Consistency 5.5 Being liked 5.7 Scarcity

Investment

Please contact the corporate consultant. The investment and duration would be quoted after Corporate TNA (Training Needs Analysis).

Course Material:

The delegate would be provided with lecture notes and handouts.

Reference books or websites would be suggested to the delegates for further reading.

Certification:

Course Completion CertiďŹ cate would be issued at the end of the training by Zabeel International. This certiďŹ cate can get attested from Ministry of Education, UAE.

ABOUT ZABEEL INTERNATIONAL

Zabeel Institute, established in 1988, is a leading Educational and Training Institute for executives in Dubai & is accredited by the Ministry of Education, UAE. We offer training programs to professionals from various industries like Administration, Engineering, Construction, Projects, Accounts and Finance, Management & Languages etc.

ZABEEL INTERNATIONAL ADVANTAGE        

Over 25 Years Experience in training Professional Executives Achiever of many QUALITY AWARDS for training from 1988 till date Qualified and Certified Trainers Sophisticated Lab with High end machines and Licensed software Certificates attested by the Ministry of Education, UAE Vast resource materials for reference & course materials Free online support for further assistance Free follow up orientation seminars, workshops & placement assistance

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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