Help with the structure of a project I'm writing - please help

chris_oc

Hi all,
I'll try and keep it as brief as I can.

I'm currently trying to write a report at the moment and I was just wondering if anyone has any tips on how I should structure it properly or if I'm doing it right at all!.

Em, where to start??... Right, first off, you have your title page(right??;)), then your index/table of contents, then your executive summary (ya??), then your project and explanation of the steps taken (or whatever it is you're doing), then a conlusion, then your appendices (with all the pictures, maps, lists etc. that you may have referred to in the report) and anything else relevant that you might want to put in such as references used etc.

Now what would really help would be if someone could fill me in on where in the hell I'm supposed to put the full explantion of the project itself!? Is it between the executive summary(which is to short to put the full explanation into) and the explantion of the steps that were undertaken throughout the whole project?!

sorry if that was a bit sketchy and hard to understand but i dont actually think that I could word any better...

thanks for any replies in advance!:)
chris

Giblet

An executive summary is just you talking about what is going to be on the paper you are writing.

You would write why you are writing the report, and the scope of the report as well as what you will discuss, very briefly.

Then after that, you write you have just outlined in the executive summary.

It is sometimes best to write the summary last, and have the outline written somewhere else for you to follow.

Eg:

This post was written in response to need of a boards.ie user who wanted to know the structure of a written report. First, I will discuss what an executive summary is followed by step by step instructions of the content of that summary. I will then give tips about how to write the summary. Also shown is an example of an executive summary.

You shouldn't need more than this to explain your project. A summary, the report itself and a conclusion. No other explanation needed.

chris_oc

The Hitcher wrote: »

An executive summary is just you talking about what is going to be on the paper you are writing.

You would write why you are writing the report, and the scope of the report as well as what you will discuss, very briefly.

Then after that, you write you have just outlined in the executive summary.

It is sometimes best to write the summary last, and have the outline written somewhere else for you to follow.

Eg:

This post was written in response to need of a boards.ie user who wanted to know the structure of a written report. First, I will discuss what an executive summary is followed by step by step instructions of the content of that summary. I will then give tips about how to write the summary. Also shown is an example of an executive summary.

You shouldn't need more than this to explain your project. A summary, the report itself and a conclusion. No other explanation needed.

Thank you

I'll do that then. my main concern was as to how much detail i had to get into while writing my executive summary. its quite a big project so ill try and sum it up into a half a page or so. then a report, steps taken, conclusion.

cheers again!

Chris