Writing Reports: Findings People Actually Read
B2 · Writing Lab · about 40 minutes
1 · Learn
A report is an essay that has been given a job: help someone decide. That is why it wears a uniform — headings, short sections, numbered recommendations — and why its most important paragraph is the SUMMARY at the top, which must contain the conclusion, not a teaser for it. Executives read summaries and recommendations; the findings exist to defend them.
Findings are organized by THEME, not by the order you did the research. Each finding follows the same rhythm: claim (what we found), evidence (the number or observation), implication (what it means for the decision). Recommendations then answer the findings, numbered, owned, and costed in rough terms.
2 · See an Example
Report Excerpt: Why the Morning Shift Loses Its Best People
SUMMARY — The distribution center loses trained morning-shift staff at twice the rate of the evening shift. Interviews and payroll data point to one cause above others: the 4:30 a.m. start combined with unreliable bus service. We recommend moving the start to 5:30 a.m. and subsidizing a shuttle from the transit hub. Estimated cost: $61,000 a year. Estimated saving in rehiring and retraining: $140,000.
FINDINGS — 1. Transport, not pay, dominates the exits. Exit interviews (n=42) mention the journey in 71% of cases; pay appears in 24%. Two buses serve the site before 5 a.m.; a single missed connection makes a worker late, and three late arrivals trigger a formal warning. 2. The shift's experience profile is collapsing. Average tenure on the morning shift fell from 3.1 years to 1.4 years in eighteen months; supervisors report spending a third of their time training. 3. The evening shift is the control group. Same pay, same work, half the attrition — the difference is the sun and the bus timetable.
RECOMMENDATIONS — (1) Move the morning start to 5:30 a.m. from October. (2) Contract a shuttle from Central Station, reviewed after six months. (3) Suspend the three-strikes warning for transport-caused lateness during the trial.
3 · Analyze the Example
- Summary contains the verdict. Cause, recommendation, cost AND saving — a reader who stops here still has the whole report. Summaries that “introduce” instead of answer are the genre's cardinal sin.
- Findings by theme, with n and %. Transport / experience / control group. Evidence is quantified (“71% of 42”) — and the sample size is printed, which is what honest numbers do.
- The control-group move. The evening shift turns an opinion into an experiment: same pay, same work, half the attrition. One comparison defeats ten opinions.
- Recommendations numbered and owned. Imperative, specific, time-stamped (“from October”, “reviewed after six months”). A decision-maker can act on Monday.
Useful Vocabulary
Attrition doubled this year.
Average tenure is 3 years.
The findings point to transport.
The city subsidizes bus passes.
The implication is clear: act now.
Useful Expressions
- SUMMARY — …
- Interviews and data point to …
- The X is the control group.
- We recommend …
- Estimated cost: … Estimated saving: …
Common Mistakes
✗ Summary: “This report will look at staff problems in the morning shift, including many interviews and much data, in order to understand the situation better.”
✓ Summary: “The morning shift loses staff at twice the evening rate; transport, not pay, is the cause. Moving the start time and adding a shuttle costs $61k and saves an estimated $140k.”
A summary that describes the report instead of answering it forces the busiest reader to do the writer's job.
✗ Findings written as a diary: “First we interviewed some people, then we looked at some numbers, then we had a meeting…”
✓ Findings by theme — transport, tenure, comparison — each with claim, evidence, implication.
Nobody funds a diary. Themes are decisions' raw material; process narration is not.
✗ Recommendations: “Management should think about transport and maybe do something about the shift times in the future.”
✓ “(1) Move the start to 5:30 a.m. from October. (2) Contract a shuttle, reviewed in six months.”
Vague recommendations are un-ownable. Numbered, dated, specific actions are how reports change the world.
4 · Guided Practice
Convert this diary line into a finding: “We asked workers questions and a lot of them said the bus was bad.”
See a model answer
Example: “Transport dominates the exits: 71% of leavers (30 of 42) cited the pre-5 a.m. bus service as a main reason for quitting.”
Write the summary sentence for findings: (a) library users fell 30% (b) evening users fell most (c) a café in the library doubles visits where tried.
See a model answer
Example: “Library visits fell 30% in two years, concentrated in the evening; we recommend piloting an in-library café, which doubled evening visits in comparable branches.”
Make it ownable: “Someone should probably fix the website soon.”
See a model answer
“(1) The web team to rebuild the checkout page by March 1, with success measured by completed orders.” — owner, deadline, metric.
5 · Write — Your Task
✍️ Write a short report about something you can genuinely observe (your workplace, school, gym, a website you use, your building): a summary that contains the verdict, three findings by theme (each with evidence and implication), and numbered, dated recommendations.
Goal: Title + Summary + 3 Findings + Recommendations · Length: 300–380 words
- Write the summary LAST but place it FIRST — it must contain the answer.
- Every finding: claim → number/observation → so-what.
- Recommendations: numbered, imperative, with a date or a review point.
6 · Check — Self-Check
Work through your checklist honestly, then run the Self-Check. It counts words and sentences and spots mechanical points — it does not grade your English. You are the editor.
Read a model answer for the task
REPORT: The Reading Room Nobody Uses (Community Library, North Branch) SUMMARY — The north branch's reading room sits empty on weekday afternoons while the children's area overflows. Observation counts over three weeks show the room at 12% occupancy after 3 p.m., against 96% next door. The cause is scheduling, not demand: the room is reserved for silent study during exactly the hours when families arrive. We recommend rezoning the room by hour — silent mornings, family afternoons — at zero cost.
FINDINGS — 1. Demand exists at the door. Staff turned away or redirected 60+ family groups in three weeks. 2. The silence rule protects a minority use. Before noon the room serves exam students at 78% occupancy; after 3 p.m. it serves almost no one. 3. A sister branch rezoned by hour last year and reported total visits up 22% with no new spending. RECOMMENDATIONS — (1) Trial hourly zoning for one term from September. (2) Signage at the door showing the day's two modes. (3) Review counts in December against this baseline.
7 · Improve & Rewrite
Weak version — rewrite it in your notebook first, then compare:
This report is about the problem of the website. We did research and looked at the website a lot. Many users are unhappy. The website is slow and some pages are bad. We think the company should fix the website and make it better for users in the future.
See an improved version
SUMMARY — The checkout page is costing the store an estimated $18,000 a month: 41% of users who reach it abandon their carts, against an industry norm near 25%, and page-load times on mobile (6.8 seconds) are the clear outlier. We recommend a technical rebuild of the checkout only, budgeted at $12,000, before any wider redesign is discussed.
FINDINGS — 1. Speed: the checkout is the slowest page on the site on every device tested. 2. Trust: the payment step requests information twice, and exit surveys name 'being asked again' as the top irritation. 3. The rest of the site performs normally — the problem is one page, not the brand.
Quick Quiz
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