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How to Write
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C.H. Dixie

Subject: WRFC141

Lecturer: Ms CH Dixie
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 Table of Contents

1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1
2 The Writing Process ............................................................................................ 1
2.1 Pre-Writing ................................................................................................... 2
2.2 Writing .......................................................................................................... 2
2.3 Post-writing .................................................................................................. 2
3 Characteristics of Report Writing......................................................................... 2
3.1 Specific Audience ........................................................................................ 2
3.2 Objective Language ..................................................................................... 3
3.3 Clear Organisation ....................................................................................... 3
3.4 Visual Aids ................................................................................................... 4
4 The Contents of a Report .................................................................................... 4
4.1 Title .............................................................................................................. 4
4.2 Author .......................................................................................................... 4
4.3 Table of Contents......................................................................................... 4
4.4 Introduction .................................................................................................. 5
4.5 Main Body .................................................................................................... 5
4.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 7
4.7 References................................................................................................... 7
4.8 Appendices .................................................................................................. 8
5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 8
6 Bibliography / References ................................................................................... 8
Appendix A – Instructions for formatting your report .................................................. 9

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 Table of Figures
Figure 1 Document design model of the writing process (Pauley & Riordan 1985) 1
Figure 2 Use simple language (Browne 1998) ....................................................... 3

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 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank André Calitz for providing the initial material for this document,
Caroline Goodier and Berny Snow for assisting in its compilation and Marinda
Taljaard for showing me how.
I would also like to thank all the students over the years who have helped improve
this document through using it to write up their projects.

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iii
 1 Introduction
Writing is important, not only throughout your university career, but also when you
work in industry. Any business depends on the written word to provide information –
from making important decisions to organising the annual office party. Promotions
are usually based on performance and report writing is a highly visible part of
performance. As your career progresses, either at university – becoming a senior
student – or in industry as you are promoted, your report-writing skills will become
increasingly valuable. As undergraduate students, your promotion through the years
of study is based solely on grades assigned to written work – practical reports,
assignments, tests and examinations.
The purpose of this document is to provide you with information on how to go about
the task of writing a report or a research project. Pay attention to the details and you
will have a far greater chance of achieving success than if you merely slap a few
words onto a page!
Section 2 provides guidelines to the writing process. Section 3 discusses aspects to
be considered when writing a report. Section 4 provides guidelines to the contents
of a report. Use these while you are writing your report and as a checklist at the end,
to ensure that you include all the items required in a report.
Citation, 1st time list
2 The Writing Process all the authors
Any task you undertake has an inherent sequence of events – an order in which you
do things so that you accomplish your goal. Pauley and Riorden (1985) propose that
report-writing is no exception. They suggest that the writing process has three
phases: pre-writing, writing and post-writing. Figure 1 illustrates this process.

Pre-Writing Writing Post-Writing

1. What is the Goal of your 1. Set up formatting of 1. Check if your report
message? document. matches your goals,
audience and format
2. Who is your audience? 2. Insert outline of report requirements.
in document
3. What is the format of 3. Fill in details of
your message? document (with citations
& references).
4. Review & revise draft.

4. Locate relevant 5. Peer review and revise

information. document.

Figure 1 Document design model of the writing process (adapted from Pauley , et al 1985)

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Citation – 2nd time, only
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numbers, starting at 1.
2.1 Pre-Writing
Work through this phase before you do any actual writing. Plan your document
using a number of steps, each of which is best defined by a relevant question
(Pauley, et al 1985):
 Determine the scope What message do you want to convey?
What is an effective outline?
 Determine the purpose Why to you need a document?
What is the expected final form of the document?
 Define the audience Who will the reader(s) be?
What are the needs of the reader(s)? (see 3.1)
 Define the task What are the basic facts?
What activity will the reader(s) perform after
reading the document?
 Determine the constraints What special limitations affect the document?
For example: page limit, special format, deadline,
etc.
2.2 Writing
In this phase, you need to actually write the document. You need to select the
content, organise it for your audience, write clearly in short, simple sentences and
choose the visual aids (pictures, etc.) to illustrate your text.
When using a word processor, it is far easier to set up the formatting of your
document appropriately before you start writing – see Appendix A.
2.3 Post-writing
Once you have written the first draft, you need to evaluate, revise and edit your
material to ensure that you are presenting it in the most effective way. You need to
ensure that you are conveying your message as effectively as you can. As you can
see in Figure 1, this step overlaps with the actual writing of the document. Good
writers seldom write the complete document before evaluating what they have
written – they write a little bit, evaluate and perhaps rewrite or edit, and then write
more.
It is essential to read through what you have written before handing it over to your
‘audience’ – the reader(s). Make sure that what you are reading makes sense and
that the information is focussed on the stated goals of the report.

3 Characteristics of Report Writing

The following section discusses aspects to be considered when writing any kind of
report. Think about these characteristics before you start writing, and then check
them against the document at the end.
3.1 Specific Audience
Every piece of writing has an intended audience – the reader(s) of the document.
Your audience will affect all the decisions you make, from organisation and visual

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aids to sentence structure and word choice. Audiences need clear information and
they expect a certain form and content. You must write you document for a specific
audience in a specific situation. Your goal is to generate the clearest document for
your audience, so you must consider their needs and expectations as you plan, write
and revise your document. You must ask the planning questions mentioned above
(2.1), as your answers will affect what topics you include, how much detail you
present on each topic, the approach you take and even the format you choose.
3.2 Objective Language
Reports should be written in plain, objective language (Figure 2 by Dieter Vogts).

Greetings and salutations students…

On this revolution of the heavenly body on which
we reside, the enunciating and expounding on the
He means: “Hi.
subject of the implementation and functioning of a Today we’re
talking about how
von Neumann machine will be performed. Please a computer works.
open your tomes of instruction and illumination on Turn to page 25 in
your textbooks.”
folio XXV.
Why
didn’t he

? say so?

Figure 2 Use simple language

Since the purpose is to inform or persuade your reader(s) about a specific matter,
your writing focuses the reader’s attention on the relevant facts. The reader
responds only to the subject – the words should not cause the reader(s) to add their
own personal interpretations to the subject. Of course human beings are not
machines and emotions are part of all human activity. The point is that the language
should not encourage an emotional, subjective response.
3.3 Clear Organisation
A clear organisation makes a document easier to read and comprehend. To indicate
the organisation clearly, emphasise words and phrases that point out the structure.
For example, in this document, the headings are bold so that they stand out from the
regular text, and they are numbered to show the structure of the document.

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3.4 Visual Aids
Use visual aids in the form of charts, tables and drawings to illustrate textual
information. Do not use arbitrary pictures merely to make your document look
attractive – the visual aids must assist in illustrating the message you are attempting
to convey. Each chart, table or drawing (with a Figure or Table caption) you include
in your document, should be referenced in your text. If you have created your chart
appropriately, with clear labels, it is not necessary to also include the table of data
you used – these details may be placed in an Appendix (4.8) if necessary.
Use boldfaced headings to indicate the content of each section. Note how the main
section headings (Heading 1 style) are larger than the sub-headings (Heading 2
style).
Use numbered lists and indentations to emphasise important points or clarify difficult
points – for example, see sections 2.1, 4.4 and 4.5 of this document.

4 The Contents of a Report

Each report or document that you write will not necessarily contain all the following
points. However, each report will, at the very least, contain some of them.

It is always advisable to keep the Show/Hide tool on while creating a

document in the word processor, so that you can see exactly what
formatting you are using, while you type. (Home ribbon)
4.1 Title
Every report should have a title. If you are writing an article for a journal or a short
report, this title will appear at the top of the first page. If the report is longer and
more of a project, you should include a title page. The Title Page of this document
indicates what information you should include in the title page of the report you write
at university. Note that the title page does not have a page number and a section
break is created directly after the last text on the page.
4.2 Author
Just as the writer needs to consider who will be reading the document, the reader
needs to know who you are. Different journals require this information in different
formats – for example: right-aligned, below the title, in italics. For university projects,
this information is usually included on the title page.

Create your title page now, using the hints provided

4.3 Table of Contents

If the document is long, provide a table of contents with page numbers so that the
reader(s) may easily reference the sections of particular interest. If figures and / or
tables are used, they should each have their own table of contents:
Table of Contents numbers, headings & page numbers
Table of Figures figure numbers, captions & page numbers
Table of Tables table numbers, captions & page numbers

Format your document with appropriate Styles (Format menu) and section
breaks BEFORE you write the text. Refer
4 to Appendix A for help.
4.4 Introduction
This provides the reader with a framework of the document in the following manner:
 The Topic
Set the scene by providing the reader(s) with the background / context of your
report.
 The Purpose
State the purpose in one or two sentences. Note that you do not provide
conclusion-type statements in the introduction. You merely inform the
reader(s) what you are going to tell them – the information you plan to
provide. What is (are) the main questions (or goals) you are going to answer?
 The Scope
A scope statement reveals the emphasis, boundaries and organisation of the
report – the focus or perspective you are using to answer your question(s) or
goal(s) stated as the purpose.
 Overall Description
Provide a general description of the main body of the report.
 Main Sections
If the report is long and contains many sections, provide a description of the
sections in the main body of the report.
Note that these are elements of an introduction, not sub-headings.
4.5 Main Body
This is the main part of your report where you provide detailed information to your
reader(s). It is usually divided appropriately into sections with their own headings:
 Each Section or Sub-Section should contain the information related to a single
topic or step of the process.
 Each paragraph usually consists of more than one sentence and contains 1
part of the information related to the Section topic or step.
 Each (short) sentence should contain ONE idea only.
When writing any report where information is collected from other peoples’ writing,
beware of plagiarism. You may not write someone else’s words in your document
and pretend that they are your own. If you are quoting another author, make sure
that you indicate this by placing the words within quotation marks and in italics –
“blah blah” – provide a citation within the text and include the complete information
about the source in the bibliography or reference section (4.7). If you are using
information from another author, but placing it in your own words, you are still
required to provide the citation and reference. The surname or acronym used in the
citation within the text, should always be the first item of the bibliographical reference
(4.7).

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Consider the following points when writing the main body:
 Headings
These are words or phrases that indicate the content of the text that follows.
All reports are divided into sections, indicated by headings. Each subdivision
has its own heading and number. Levels are indicated by the appearance of
the heading (font and point size) and by the actual number. Subdivide a
number by periods to indicate the level and sequence within the level – for
example: 4.5 is a sub-heading of 4.
Word choice is important in headings. Try to follow these guidelines:
o Use specific content words, not broad, general words.
o Be consistent in how you structure each level of headings.
o Questions can be very effective, but only if relevant to the report and
audience.
Note: Main Body is not the heading of your main section, it is merely a
description!
 Indentation
Use indentation of paragraphs and information to indicate subdivisions of text
or to emphasise certain points.
 Pagination
Assign each page a number. In any word processor, this should be handled
automatically. All the author is required to do is decide on where to place the
number, what format to present it in and which page to call Page 1. Note the
hints on the first few pages of this document.
 Punctuation, Spelling & Grammar
These rules, according to Visser (1988), apply to the entire report:
o Leave two space after a full stop (.), a question mark (?) and an
exclamation mark (!).
o Leave one space after a comma (,), a semi-colon (;) and a colon (:).
o For dashes (hyphens), type one space before and after each dash,
although these should be used sparingly in formal writing.
o Usually any document you create during your university career should
be 1½ or double spaced (Format menu, paragraph, line spacing – set
this in your Normal style).
 Margins
Always leave left and right margins of at least 2.5cm (1 inch). If you are going
to bind your document, the margin closest to the binding should be slightly
wider – Visser (1989) suggests ±3cm. Top and bottom margin sizes will
depend on the contents of your headers and footers – text that is
automatically placed at the top and bottom of each page.

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 Numbers & Dates
Do not begin a sentence with a numeral – write the number in words. If more
than one number appears in a sentence or paragraph, either write them all as
words or all as numerals. Use the numerals when combining numbers with
abbreviations, for example: 3cm, and when referring to page numbers or
reference numbers of sections (Visser 1989).
 Abbreviations & Contractions
Never use abbreviations like viz, e.g. and i.e. in the body of the text in a
formal document. Use the words namely, for example and that is.
4.6 Conclusion
This is a section where you tell the reader(s) what the report was about and draw
your conclusions – for example: providing the answer(s) to the question(s) raised in
the introduction. If the reader(s) reads only the Introduction and Conclusion
sections, the report should make sense – match what you said you would do to what
you actually did.
In the Conclusion, you emphasise the report’s most significant data and ideas. You
must base all conclusions on material presented in the body – you cannot suddenly
bring in new information. You should be able to relate each conclusion to specific
data on specific pages. Concise, numbered conclusions, limited to the information
with the greatest impact on the recommendations, are the most effective.
4.7 References / Bibliography
This section is usually placed after the conclusion section (4.6) and before the
appendices (4.8). It is imperative that you document your sources of information
using a citation system, to indicate whose ideas you are using. The following
information should always be stated: author, initials, year of publication, title of the
article or book, journal name and volume where the article may be found (if
applicable), publisher and location of the publisher.
The following are examples of how to structure references from various types of
sources (note that in your bibliography, you do not indicate the type, merely the
reference!):
 An example of a book
ANGELO, T.A. and CROSS, K.P. (1988) Classroom assessment techniques:
A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco, USA, 2nd Ed,
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Making use of a hanging indent makes it easier for the reader(s) to find the
reference they may be looking for. The 1st citation for this example would be
(Angelo & Cross 1988); the 2nd citation would be (Angelo, et al 1988)
 An example of a Journal article
WEHLBURG, C. (1999) How to get the ball rolling: Beginning an assessment
program on your campus. AAHE Bulletin 51(9).
Note the volume and issue number is included in the reference.

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 An example of a web article
ECDLF (2000a) European Computer Driver's Licence syllabus (version 3.0).
Ireland, European Computer Driver’s License Foundation.
http://www.ecdl.com/syllabus Accessed: 05 May 2001.
Information found on the Internet often may not have an author. In this case,
use the first letters of the organisation name to form an acronym so that you
have an ‘author’ to use in your citations in the text – for example (ECDLF
2000a).
If you have more than one reference for the same author(s) in the same year,
you number them a, b, c, etc. next to the year of publication and include this in
the citation as shown in the above example.
Bibliographical references should be listed in alphabetical order of authors to make it
easy for the reader(s) to find a reference cited in the text. See the references use for
this document in 6. below.
4.8 Appendices
The appendices contain information of a minor, supplementary or highly technical
nature that you do not want to place in the main body of the report – details that may
interest the reader(s) but would clutter the report itself. For example: the detailed
information from a spreadsheet that you used to create the chart. However, you
must not place so much in the appendices that you fail to present significant data in
the main report. Refer to each appendix item at the appropriate place in the main
body.

5 Conclusion
This document is written according to recommendations made for writing a report
and may serve as an example of the layout of a report. It emphasises the need to
plan (pre-writing) and evaluate (post-writing) your report and how to organise your
information (writing), using a word processor (Appendix A).
The recommendations made are very brief. As you progress through your careers at
university and in industry, you will require more information. If it recommended that
you consult an appropriate source before undertaking a major project report, to
ensure that you use appropriate writing techniques to gain the maximum benefit from
your document.

6 References
BROWNE, D. (1998) Hagar the Horrible. The EP Herald. Johnnic : Port Elizabeth.
PAULEY, S.R. & RIORDEN, D.G. (1985) Technical report writing today, 3rd Ed.
Houghton Mifflin Company : Boston, USA.
VISSER, N. (1989) Handbook for writers of essays & theses. Maskew Miller
Longman : Cape Town.

Note how the list is in alphabetical order by author so that the

reader can easily find a reference from the citation.

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Appendix A – Instructions for formatting your report
1. Create a cover page for your project with a title; your name, surname, student
number & module code; and your Tutor’s name.
2. Page Layout (ribbon) a section Break to move you on to the Next Page.
Insert page number in the footer of Section 2 (NOT Link to Previous) in
Roman numerals, starting from i. The heading on the page should state
Table of Contents (Arial, bold, 14pt, centred)
3. Page Layout (ribbon) a second section Break to move you on to the Next
Page. Insert page number in the footer of Section 3 (NOT Link to Previous) in
Arial, 10pt, starting from 1.
4. Set up Format Styles as follows:
On the Home ribbon, right-click on the relevant style, click modify and follow
the instructions below. NOTE: if you don’t see the particular style you are
looking for, click on the down (or up) arrows next to the fourth style.
a. Normal: (Font) Arial, Regular, 12pt; (Paragraph) Justified, Spacing 6pt
after, single line spacing
b. Heading 1: (Font) Arial, bold, 14pt; (Paragraph) Left aligned, Spacing
12pt before, 6pt after, single line spacing, (Numbering, Outline
Numbering) 1. 1.1 1.1.1, customize, level 1, starting from 1, set font to
Arial, bold, 14pt, tab indent from 0 to 1.25cm (or 0.5”)
c. Heading 2: (Font) Arial, bold, 12pt; (Paragraph) Left aligned, Spacing
6pt before, 6pt after, single line spacing, (Numbering, Outline
Numbering) 1. 1.1 1.1.1, customize, level 2, set font to Arial, bold, 12pt,
tab indent from 0 to 1.25cm (or 0.5”)
d. Heading 3: (Font) Arial, bold & italics, 12pt; (Paragraph) Left aligned,
Spacing 6pt before, 6pt after, single line spacing, (Numbering, Outline
Numbering) 1. 1.1 1.1.1, customize, level 3, set font to Arial, bold &
italics, 12pt, tab indent at 1.25cm (or 0.5”)
5. When you type your main headings – select the style Heading 1 from the
Home ribbon, sub-headings – select the style Heading 2, etc. When you
press enter after typing in a heading, the style should automatically revert to
Normal so that you can type your paragraphs. You already have the
between-paragraph spacing set up so you do not need to press enter twice at
the end of your paragraphs.