Chapter 12: Planning Reports and Proposals

Reports fall into three basic categories:

- Informational Reports - Anaytical Reports - Proposals

You can use information from secondary sources in three ways:

- Quoting - Phrasing - Summarizing

When looking for secondary information in the library, you'll find books, databases, periodicals, and other helpful materials:

- Trade Journals - Academic Journals - Business Books - Directories - Government Publications - Online databases

Save time and get better results by using a clear process:

1. Plan your research. 2. Locate the data and information you need. 3. Process the data and information you find. 4. Apply your findings. 5. Manage information efficiently (through knowledge management systems and other means).

Summary?

Briefly summarize the business concept, particularly the business model, defining how the company will generate revenue and produce a profit.

Reaching good conclusions based on the evidence at hand is an important ...

Business skill

products or services?

Concisely describe your products or services, focusing on their unique attributes and their appeal to customers.

You can also explore the relationships between subsets of data using ...

Cross-tabulation

Missions and objectives?

Explain the purpose of the business and what you hope to accomplish.

Company and Industry?

Give full background information on the origins and structure of your venture and the characteristics of the industry in which you plan to compete.

If your audience might not accept your main idea without some reasoning and evidence, or if you haven't previously established your credibility with these readers. What approach is a better choice?

Indirect approach

A survey is valid if...

It measures what is intended to measure

Online Monitoring Tools:

One of the most powerful aspects of online research is the ability to automatically monitor selected sources for new information.

2. Secondary research consists of research...

Previously conducted for another purpose.

Market and Competition?

Provide data that will persuade investors that you understand the target market and can achieve your sales goals. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors.

Search tips:

Search engines and databases work in different ways, so make sure you understand how to optimize your search and interpret the results.

Online search tools:

Search engines such as Google and Bing scan millions of websites to identify individual webpages that contain a specific word or phrase, then attempt to rank the results from most useful to least useful.

Reference librarians can be your most important resource because...

They are trained in research techniques, can show you how to use the library's many databases, and can help you find obscure information.

Technology can help you with documentation tools to

Track and number endnotes for you • Create a bibliography of all the sources you used

Making recommendations?

Whereas a conclusion interprets the facts, a recommendation suggests what to do about the facts.

The three-step process covered earlier in the text is particularly beneficial for developing reports and proposals because of the ...

amount of work involved in these longer documents

Think carefully about the sequence of your questions and the potential answers so you can ...

arrange them in an order that helps uncover layers of information

causation?

cause-and-effect linkage between two factors, where one of them causes the other to happen

Getting in-depth information straight from an expert, a customer, or other interested party can be a great method for ...

collecting primary information.

A business plan is...

comprehensive document that describes a company's mission, structure, objectives, and operations.

Online Databases?

computer-searchable collections of information.

Drawing conclusions?

conclusion is a logical interpretation of the facts in your report

To give subjects a chance to think through responses thoroughly, consider...

conducting interviews via email or other digital channels.

View every business report as an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of your audience's challenges and your ability to ...

contribute to your organization's success.

Ask closed-ended questions to ...

elicit a specific answer, such as yes or no.

Informational reports provide the information that...

employees, managers, and others need in order to make decisions, take action, and respond to dynamic conditions both inside and outside the organization.

Be sure to take advantage of the latest research tools available to you, including...

enterprise search engines and research and content managers such as LiveBinders and Zotero.

1. Before beginning your research, verify the...

ethics and etiquette of your approach.

When selecting people to participate in a survey, the most critical task is ...

getting a representative sample of the entire population in question

Website owners use search engine optimization techniques to ....

help boost their rankings in the results.

survey is reliable if it produces ...

identical results when repeated under similar conditions.

Summarizing?

identifies the main ideas and major support points from your source material but leaves out most details, examples, and other less critical information.

Directories?

include information for all kinds of professions, industries, and special-interest groups.

Ask open-ended questions to ...

invite opinion, insight, and information.

Business Books?

less timely than journals, but they provide in-depth coverage.

2. Primary research consists of...

new research done specifically for your current project.

Other primary techniques are ...

observations (including tracking the behavior of website visitors) and experiments in special situations such as test marketing.

Government publications?

offer information on laws, court decisions, population patterns, economic data, and business trends.

Analytical reports?

offering both information and analysis, and perhaps recommendation

Informational Reports?

offering information but no analysis or recommendation

Proposals?

offering structured persuasion for internal or external audiences

Summarizing?

presenting the gist of the material in fewer words than the original

For anything beyond the simplest of reports, a carefully thought-out work plan is the best way to make sure you ...

produce good work on schedule.

Trade Journals?

provide information about specific professions and industries.

Academic Journals?

provide research-oriented articles from researchers and educators.

Quoting?

reproducing material exactly as you found it (in quotation marks or extracted paragraphs)

For any conclusion in a report to be sound, it must be logical and be based strictly on the information included in ...

rest of the report.

Phrasing?

restating material in your own words and sentence structure

Correlation?

simultaneous change in two variables you're measuring, such as customer satisfaction dropping when product reliability drops

Another useful way to gain insight into numerical data is to look for a trend. What is a trend?

steady upward or downward movement in a pattern of events taking place over time

The two most common methods of primary research are ...

surveys and interviews

Avoid using too many closed-ended questions in an interview;

take advantage of the opportunity to get more in-depth and personal answers with open-ended questions.

Many of the surveys you see online, for example, probably suffer from sampling bias because they capture only the opinions of people who...

visit the sites and want to participate.

2. You can use research results in one or more ways:

• Analyzing numeric data • Quoting textual material • Paraphrasing textual material • Summarizing textual material • Drawing conclusions • Making recommendations

Business plans can be written or updated during three separate phases of a company's life:

• Before the company is launched • When the company is seeking funding • After the company is up and running (and may want to expand or change course)

To generate results that are both reliable and valid:

• Choose research participants carefully. • Develop an effective set of questions.

Most informational reports use a topical organization:

• Comparison • Importance • Sequence • Chronology • Spatial orientation • Geography • Category

2. Separate quality sources from suspect ones by asking the following questions:

• Does the source have a reputation for honesty and reliability? • Is the source potentially biased? • What is the purpose of the material? • Is the author credible? • Where did the source get its information? • Can you verify the material independently? • Is the material current? • Is the material complete? • Are all claims supported with evidence? • Do the source's claims stand up to logical scrutiny?

1. To avoid ethical lapses, follow these guidelines:

• Don't force a specific outcome by skewing your research • Respect the privacy of your research participants. • Document sources and give appropriate credit. • Respect the intellectual property and digital rights of your sources. • Don't distort information from your sources. • Don't misrepresent who you are or what you intend to do with your research.

Your statement of purpose:

• Explains why you are preparing your report and what you plan to deliver in your report • Begins with an infinitive phrase (to plus a verb) • Is usually more comprehensive for analytical reports than for informational ones • Must be crystal clear for proposals to help you focus on crafting a persuasive message

1. To plan your research effectively:

• Familiarize yourself with the subject (so that you can frame insightful questions) • Develop a problem statement that will define the purpose of your research • Identify the most critical gaps in your information • Prioritize your research needs

When outlining content, use informative "talking" headings rather than simple descriptive ("topical") headings. Informative headings since:

• Force you to really think through the content • Help facilitate collaborative writing

Documentation is not necessary for:

• General knowledge • Specialized knowledge that is generally known among your readers

When your audience will be either receptive or open-minded, use the direct approach:

• It saves time and makes the rest of the report easier to follow. • It can produce a more forceful report.

1. Conducting research with poor planning:

• Limits your effectiveness (you might not find the right information) • Limits your efficiency (you might spend too much time and money on research)

Paraphrasing helps you:

• Maintain consistent tone • Present information using vocabulary more familiar to your audience • Avoid the choppy feel of too many quotations

When selecting the medium for reports and proposals, consider your audience's needs:

• Many audiences have specific media requirements and you may not have a choice. • The audience may prefer a particular way to be able to provide feedback. • The audience may need to search through the document frequently or update it. • The audience will be judging the appropriateness of your medium choice.

Other tools can help overcome the three disadvantages of search engines:

• Metasearch engines address the variance in search engine results by submitting your search request to multiple search engines at once. • Databases can provide access to material not available via regular search engines by offering access to back issues of newspapers, magazines, and journals.

To be credible, recommendations:

• Must be based on logical analysis and sound conclusions • Must be practical and acceptable to your readers • Must include an adequate description of the steps that come next

All three methods require careful attention to ethics:

• Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words as your own without crediting the source. • When paraphrasing and summarizing, take care not to distort the original intent as you express the ideas in your own words and sentences.

Documenting your secondary research:

• Properly and ethically credits the person who created the original material • Shows your audience that you have sufficient support for your message • Helps your readers explore your topic in more detail if desired

To develop an effective questionnaire:

• Provide clear instructions. • Don't ask for information that people can't be expected to remember. • Keep the questionnaire short and easy to complete. • Whenever possible, formulate questions to provide answers that are easy to analyze. • Avoid leading questions that could bias your survey. • Avoid vague descriptors such as often or frequently. • Make each question about a single idea.

To paraphrase effectively and ethically:

• Read and analyze the source material until you are thoroughly familiar with its main idea and key points. • For longer passages or technical material, jot down notes in your own words. • As you write your version, imagine that you are explaining it to someone else. • If it helps with expressing the key ideas in your own words, consider changing the structure of the material. • For words or phrases that are commonly used in a particular field, you don't need to replace them with your own language. • Revise your draft for clarity and conciseness, and to make sure it is written in your voice. • Document the source using a footnote or other citation method.

2. To familiarize yourself with the subject of your research, give yourself some unstructured time at the beginning of the project to explore the general subject area by:

• Reading industry publications • Visiting competitors' websites • Interviewing experts within your organization • Conducting a quick online search • Scanning the contents and indexes of books on the subject

Informational reports can be grouped into four general formats:

• Reports to monitor and control operations (such as plans, operating reports, and personal activity reports) • Reports to implement policies and procedures (such as policy reports and position papers) • Reports to demonstrate compliance • Reports to document progress

1. Following research etiquette requires you to:

• Respect the time of anyone who agrees to be interviewed or to be a research participant • Maintain courtesy throughout the interview or research process

A formal work plan might include the following:

• Statement of the problem or opportunity • Statement of the purpose and scope of your investigation • Discussion of tasks to be accomplished • Description of any products that will result from your investigation • Review of project assignments, schedules, and resource requirements • Plans for following up after delivering the report

Before gathering information, review both your statement of purpose and your audience's needs so that you can:

• Stay on schedule • Collect all the information you need • Collect only the information you need

Possibilities of online monitoring tools:

• Subscribing to newsfeeds from blogs and websites • Following people on Twitter and other microblogs • Setting up alerts on search engines and online databases • Using specialized monitors such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite

The specific elements to include in a business plan can vary based on the situation. Here are the sections typically included in a plan written to attract outside investors:

• Summary. • Mission and objectives. • Company and industry. • Products or services. • Market and competition. • Management. • Marketing strategy. • Design and development plans. • Operations plan. • Overall schedule. • Critical risks and problems. • Financial projections and requirements. • Exit strategy.

Analyzing numeric data: You can gain insight into numerical data by using measures that represent a group of numbers:

• The mean is the sum of all the items in the group divided by the number of items (also known as the average). • The median is the midpoint of a series (with an equal number of items above and below). • The mode is the number that occurs more often than any other in your sample.

Use direct quotations when:

• The original language will enhance your argument • Rewording the passage would lessen its impact

1. Your research tactics affect several parties:

• The people from whom you gather data and information • The people who read your results • The people who are influenced by the way you present those results

As powerful as they are, search engines have three disadvantages:

• The process used by search engines is automated, with no human editors involved to evaluate the quality of the content you find. • Various search engines use different techniques, so you may find certain pages through one engine but not through another. • Public search engines can't reach all the content on some websites (this part of the internet is sometimes called the hidden internet or the deep internet).

To make the best use of any search tool:

• Think before you search. • Read the instructions and pay attention to the details. • Don't limit yourself to a regular web search engine—or to the internet, for that matter. • Review the search and display options carefully. • Adjust the scope of your search if needed. • Review the features each search tool offers. • Look beyond the first page of results.

Roughly speaking, online research tools fall into two categories:

• Those you can use to actively search for existing information • Those you can use to monitor selected sources for new information