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How to write an executive summary

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tutorial, guidance notes, and examples

What is an executive summary?

Business reports often have an introductory section called an ‘executive summary’. This is a self-contained part of the total document – sometimes known as a ‘management summary’.

Executive SummaryIts purpose is to summarise the most important points expressed in the main document. It will usually contain brief statements regarding proposed actions, background information to the document, concise statistics or factual evidence, and principal conclusions.

The summary is usually placed at the beginning of the report or proposal. It might be printed as a separate document and circulated either along with or separately from the main report or proposal.

An executive summary is often written for an audience of senior managers, important decision-makers, potential customers, or committee members. In some cases it might also be circulated to members of the public – to demonstrate the effectiveness and proper conduct of the organisation.

It is a summary available for people who might not have time or may not need to read the entire report. But they might need to know its main points or recommendations, in order to participate in some decision-making process.

The audience for an executive summary might also include members of the public or employees of another organisation – for instance in cases where you might be applying for a grant or offering a product or service.

How is it different to an abstract?

An executive summary is different to the ‘abstract’ of a document – in that an abstract is normally a neutral précis of the whole document. The purpose of an abstract is to give readers an outline of the subject, so that they can decide whether to read the whole document or not.

An executive summary on the other hand normally contains concrete proposals for further action, and the evidence on which these decisions will be taken. It contains within it, even if by implication, calls to action.

It has its own separate heading, and is often constructed so that it can be detached from the main document if necessary.

The structure of an executive summary

The executive summary might even begin with its conclusions! This can act as a sort of a summary of the summary.

For example, in a feasibility report, the executive summary would contain a statement about the main findings of the report, and its recommendations. What follows might be the arguments or the evidence upon which these decision have been taken.

That level of detail is used by those who have a significant responsibility in the decision-making and the implementation of the project.

An executive summary should occupy only one or two pages of text maximum. If it goes on much longer than that, it ceases to be a summary and loses its purpose.

It might normally include an introductory statement, a summary of the findings, and a conclusion containing recommendations or action points. In some cases, its structure might usefully echo that of the main document. You should use clear sub-headings to make the structure clear.

Here is an example of an executive summary which is part of a feasibility report on ‘Setting Up a Company Website’.

Executive Summary

Findings so far

From the responses I have received so far, we already have the following information:

  • key benefits we would derive from a company Website
  • key issues to be addressed before developing the site

Decisions to be made

We need to be able to make the following decisions at the meeting arranged for Friday 2 June.

  • establish the benefits of a company Website
  • identify any key issues which must be addressed
  • identify any possible solutions to potential problems
  • estimate approximate costs for design and maintenance
  • agree on the next stage of the project

Key benefits

We have already established the following key benefits of introducing a company Website:

  • identify new products
  • establish new contacts
  • provide a 24 hour information service for Sales staff
  • provide an effective sales support system
  • widen the audience for our products
  • allow customers to sample our products
Writing the executive summary

If you have written the complete version of the report, your task is simply to make a digest of the full document. For this you will require good summarizing skills.

For a long report, you should make a summary of each section using just a few sentences – then if necessary, reduce these even further, or list them as short bullet points.

Readers can absorb complex data more easily if it is translated into diagrams or ‘information graphics’. Use tables, pie charts, and graphs in which trends and statistics can be seen clearly, without specialist knowledge.

The executive summary should contain less jargon than the full report. That’s because there might be non-specialists involved in the decision-making process. In some cases the executive summary might be something intended for a public audience – such as the summary of a charity’s annual report, demonstrating how it had spent last year’s money, and what its priorities are for the coming year.

The executive summary is written last – after the full formal report has been completed. Yet paradoxically, it comes first when the full contents are assembled for consideration – either as a PowerPoint presentation or in the form of a printed booklet.

The structure of an executive summary

The structure or the sequence headings in your executive summary can follow the same sequence as in the main document or report – with one exception. The conclusions of an executive summary come first, whereas in the main report they are likely to come at the end, followed only by appendices and bibliographies.

Sample summary structure

This is an example of an executive summary in abbreviated form, so as to reveal more effectively its structure. It comes from an imaginary report into a proposal to build a new vehicle access road into an airport.

Conclusions

Manchester Airport Authority (MAA) recommends that its proposal for the new vehicle access road be accepted in the recently modified format dated 12 June 2012.

Consultation with the government’s transport select committee over shared funding of this project will continue, but should not be allowed to delay the commencement of building in March 2014.

Responsibility for the management of the project will rest with RoadBuild Projects Ltd, answerable to the Department of Transport and Greater Manchester Transport Executive

Evidence from Transport Select Committee

This is summarised in Appendix A of the full report.

Evidence from public enquiry

This is summarised in Appendix B of the full report.

Environmental factors

The two principal environmental concerns raised during the consultation period have been related to traffic density on the new approach road and loss of greenfield sites.

It is estimated that building the new approach road will result in a 50% rise in traffic density on a daily basis on the western approach to the airport. This will require considerable expansion in both parking facilities and modifications in existing roads to maintain traffic flow.

Compensation costs for greenfield site acquisition have been built into the project budget, and wherever possible existing brownfield sites have been designated for any expansion of parking facilities.

Costings

These are shown in Table II of the full report.

Building schedule

This is given in Appendix C of the full report.
The writer’s responsibilities

In order to produce the executive summary, you need to have a very clear understanding of the document as a whole. You will also need to know exactly what conclusions can be drawn from it, and the nature of any decision which are to be taken.

If you have only been actively engaged in a part or only one aspect of the whole process with which the report deals, you will need to check with the ‘core participants’ that your understanding of the details is complete and correct.

For instance, you might be given the responsibility for preparing an executive summary simply as a secretarial task. You might not have attended crucial decision-making meetings or done any of the original research with which the report deals. In such cases you should prepare the summary in close liaison with the principal figures associated with the report.

These might be a managing director, a lead researcher, or the chair and secretary of a committee.

© Roy Johnson 2012

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How to write book reviews

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book reviewsnotes and style guide for reviewers

1. Good book reviews should as a bare minimum be informative, but if they are good they will also be entertaining. Keep three things in mind whilst writing – your readers, the type of review, and the purpose of the review.

2. Your readers may be beginners – or advanced specialists. You should write reviews in different ways, according to the audience. A general reader will not have detailed technical knowledge. Advanced readers will want specialist information. The type of audience is likely to be determined by the publication – either in print or on the Web.

3. The kind of publication will also determine the type of review that is required. Popular newspapers and magazines have very short reviews – some as short as 100-200 words. Specialist journals might have reviews up to 2,000 words long. Make sure you have a clear idea of the type of review you are writing by getting to know the publication first.

4. The purpose of a review is to give an account of the subject in question (the book, film, play, or event) and offer a reasoned opinion about its qualities. Your main task is to report on the content, the approach, and the scope of the work for the benefit of your readers.

5. Even short reviews will be more successful if they have a firm structure. Here’s a bare-bones plan for a review:

  • Brief introduction
  • Description of contents
  • Assessment of value
  • Comparison with others
  • Conclusion

6. Unless you are writing for a specialist journal, you should write in an easy reader-friendly manner.

7. Some publications give their reviewers scope for showing off or being controversial. (Pop music, restaurant, and television reviewers seem particularly prone to this.) In general however, you will be doing your readers a favour by putting their interests before your own.

8. If you are writing for the Web (in pages like these) remember to write in shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs than you would for a print publication. Reading extended prose on a computer screen is not easy. You will keep your reader’s attention by ‘chunking’ your information.

9. Apart from professional journalists, most reviewers do not get paid. However, you will get to keep the book, CD, or the object you are reviewing.

Review Structure

Here is the structure of a typical book review from this Mantex web site.

1. Title

2. Sub-title

3. One-sentence summary (ten words maximum)

4. Opening paragraph. This should be attention-grabbing, conversational in tone, and it might be slightly provocative. It’s purpose is to introduce the work under review – and to encourage the site visitor to read on. (Fifty words maximum)

5. Body of review. This will be a series of short paragraphs – around fifty words each in length. The total length of the review should be between 500 and 1,000 words – with longer reviews for exceptionally good or interesting works.

6. The review should give some account of the work’s positive qualities.

7. A typical review might take into account any of the following topics:

  • What is the intended audience?
  • Is it physically well produced?
  • Is it pitched at the right level?
  • Does it have any unusual features?
  • What distinguishes it from similar publications of its type?

8. Concluding paragraph (fifty words maximum). This can summarise the reviewer’s opinion and may offer a personal flourish which echoes the introduction.

9. Full bibliographic details of the work under review – Author(s) – Title and Sub-title – Place of publication – Publisher – Date of publication – Number of pages – Full ISBN

10. The review should be accompanied by a graphic file of the book jacket or the software package design. These can be taken from the publisher’s site, or from Amazon.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

Do give examples
A brief quotation to illustrate good qualities of the work will brighten up your review. But keep it very short. Alternatively, use it as a ‘pull quote’. This is a statement which can appear separated from the main text of your review – placed in a box or highlighted in some way. These are usually chosen to capture the flavour of the work under review.

Don’t go on too long
Reviews which are short and to-the-point are more effective than ones which go on at great length. Unless you have lots of interesting things to say, readers will quickly become bored.

Don’t be over-negative
If you think something is entirely bad, then it’s probably not worth writing the review. After all, why bother giving publicity to bad work? There are only a couple of exceptions to this. One is if you wish to counter other reviews which you think have been mistaken or over-generous. The other is if the author is very well known and seems to you to have written badly. In such cases, make sure you give convincing reasons for your negative opinions – otherwise you risk seeming prejudiced.

How to write reviews of fiction

1. When reviewing fiction you are writing as an experienced reader, and your review is a personal response to your reading experience. A first person mode of address is permitted more than normal.

2. If possible you should consider the text in the context of the type or genre to which it belongs. It’s no good judging science fiction against the conventions of a traditional realist novel.

3. However, it always helps to have the full range of literary traditions in mind. If somebody writes about ‘floating islands’ you will look fairly silly if you don’t know that Jonathan Swift did it in 1726.

4. Give a brief summary of the plot – but don’t on any account give away any surprise or trick endings. You can say that the book ends in a dramatic or unexpected manner, but don’t spoil the reader’s pleasure.

5. Consider the book in the light of others of its kind. Is it offering something new, or just a variation on an old theme? Maybe the variation itself reflects some contemporary issue?

6. Comment on the quality of the writing. Is the prose style worthy of mention? Here is where a brief quotation can be very telling. Does the author do anything original in the way of presentation?

7. Are any large scale contemporary themes being explored? What are the underlying issues beneath the surface story-line? These may not be immediately evident, and sometimes authors write about one subject as a metaphor or a symbol for another.

8. Are the characters vividly portrayed and memorable? If so, try to give a brief example.

9. Has the author given obvious thought to the plot and the structure of the novel? Plot is usually easy to perceive, but structure can be a more difficult feature to isolate and describe.

10. You do not need to cover every detail of the book. It will be enough if you deal with the most important issues. Make your review as interesting as possible.

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© Roy Johnson 2004

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How to Write Critical Essays

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advice on writing academic essays – from start to finish

David Pirie’s sub-title here is ‘a guide for students of literature’ – but his advice will be useful for anybody in the arts or humanities. What he offers is to talk you through the process, from understanding the question to producing and submitting the final draft. He adopts a very sensible approach, and the advice he offers is timeless. The essay as an academic exercise has endured because it is both a form of intellectual self-discovery and a flexible yet taxing means of assessment. He starts with analysing and understanding questions, then organising the ‘research’ for your answer – including detailed advice on taking notes. All this quickly becomes an introduction to literary criticism.

How to Write Critical EssaysHis chapter on devising a suitable structure for an essay explores the standard approaches to this task. These are discussing the arguments for and against a proposition; following the chronological order of events; and constructing a logical sequence of topics. I think a few more concrete examples would have been helpful here. The chapter on how to make a detailed case is more useful, precisely because he examines a series of concrete examples, showing how to quote and examine selected passages. The same is true of his chapter on style, where he illustrates his warnings against repetition, vagueness, generalisation, plagiarism, and overstatement.

There’s something eloquent yet curiously old-fashioned about his prose style. The voice is like an audio recording of someone speaking to us from an earlier age. And he uses phrases which flatter his readers. He talks about students ‘writing criticism’ – as if their coursework exercises were about to be published.

It’s a shame there is no bibliography or index. These are omissions which should be rectified if the book ever makes its long-overdue second edition.

© Roy Johnson 2005

How to Write Critical Essays   Buy the book at Amazon UK

How to Write Critical Essays   Buy the book at Amazon US

David Pirie, How to Write Critical Essays: a guide for students of literature, London: Routledge, 1985, pp.139, ISBN: 0415045339

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How to Write Good

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tips for guaranteed success with words

How to Write Good is a little catalogue of wisdom written by Frank L. Visco. It was originally published in the June 1986 issue of Writers’ Digest, where he claimed: “My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules.”

  1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
     
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
     
  3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
     
  4. Employ the vernacular.
     
  5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
     
  6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
     
  7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
     
  8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
     
  9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
     
  10. One should never generalise.
     
  11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
     
  12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
     
  13. Don’t be redundant, don’t use more words than necessary, it’s highly superfluous.
     
  14. Profanity sucks.
     
  15. Be more or less specific.
     
  16. Understatement is always best.
     
  17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
     
  18. One-word sentences? Eliminate!
     
  19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
     
  20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
     
  21. Go round the barn at high speed to avoid colloquialisms.
     
  22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
     
  23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
     
  24. Abjure polysyllabic obfuscations.
     
  25. Finally, chech for pselling errors and typeos.

How to Write Good Also see 26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

Most writing guides will give similar advice – but without the fun. Here is a collection of style guides for different types of writing – from academic scholarship, to business communications and commercial report writing. These guides cover topics such as word choice, clear expression, grammar, syntax, and case agreement, plus punctuation, editing and proof reading. It’s important to note that there are specific style conventions for different types of writing. What works for scientific writing may not be suitable for an engineering report or a business proposal.

How to Write Good Writing Guides

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How to write memos

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guidance and writing skill for a common office document

What are memos?

The term memo is short for ‘memorandum’. Their purpose is to give information in a brief form.

Memos can be seen as notes, very brief letters, or micro-reports.

A memo is usually very short – a few lines or paragraphs at the most.

Memos

Some memos are even distributed on slips of paper.

Organisations usually have a recognisable form and layout for all internal memos.

Most memos are notices which pass between colleagues, sometimes within departments or to other departments or other sites.

The Internet has become a very popular medium for the memo. This is probably due to its brief format. Email messages can be seen as electronic memos in most business instances.

Memos should have a main heading stating the subject of the message, and sub-headings which lead into the message sections.

Memos usually bear the generic heading ‘MEMO’ at the top of the page. This acts as an advanced organiser so that the recipient is in no doubt of the document type and function.

The information in a memo should be set out in order of importance, with the most important item listed first.

Remember that effective business communication operates on the ‘punchline first’ principle. [It is only in a whodunit story or a narrative joke that we appreciate the withholding of vital information.]

Memos – the content

A memo should always contain the following information.

  • The subject of the memo
  • The name of the sender
  • The name of the recipient(s)
  • The date of posting
  • The message itself
Memos – types

There are various types of memo. These are the most commonly used.

  • Information
  • Announcement
  • Update
Information memos

An information memo provides information that is relevant to the recipient, or it replies with information that has been requested. The memo subject is stated in the title.

MEMO

SUBJECT
DATE
TO
FROM		 Quote for Budget Projections
18 February 2006
J. Brown, Training Manager
G. Thwaite

Background

You requested a quote from a printer to use in your budget projections on the current project.

Quote

The cost for printing 1000 brochures in the dimensions you cited will be approximately £2,000.

Source
I obtained this information from Streamline Printers.

Scheduling
Though you did not ask about scheduling, the information manager of Streamline printers stated unequivocally that you must allow three weeks from the date of delivery of camera-ready copy.

Announcement memos

A meeting announcement memo is one sent by an individual or department to other individuals, departments, or company representatives to advise them of a forthcoming meeting.

These usually contain the date and agenda of the meeting, although, they may simply announce the date.

MEMO

SUBJECT
DATE
TO
FROM		 Meeting about Sundeal Hotels
21 March 2001
Members of the Executive Committee
D. Henderson, Chair of Neatfit

Purpose
This meeting will consider a joint venture between Belsize Amusement Parks and Sundeal Hotels.

Time
The meeting will be held on 26 March at 9.30 am.

Place
The Board Room has been booked and refreshments will be served.

Agenda
The meeting will include two sessions.

General session (10.00 am to 12.00 am)

  • introductions of board members
  • AAAP Presentation
  • financial summary
  • questions and discussion

Executive session (1.15pm to 4.00 pm)

  • fiscal status Sundeal Hotels
  • decisions and recommendations

Confirmation
Please confirm your attendance by contacting Mary Golding Ext. 234

Attachments
The following documents are attached:

  • AAAP Annual Report
  • financial summary
  • preliminary paper on Joint Venture
Update memos

Update memos are notes which are transmitted between colleagues on a regular or frequent basis.

Because of the nature of the relationship of the authors, these are often quite brief and informal.

These are the sort of office communications that are now largely conducted via email messages.

MEMO

SUBJECT
DATE
TO
FROM		 Help me out!
12 March 1999
Jean
Sally

Quick! I need a list of all our products containing Zinc.

Sorry to dump on you like this but it’s more than my job’s worth to miss the deadline. (Tues)

Let’s have a coffee later in the week.

MEMO

SUBJECT
DATE
TO
FROM		 Staff Outing
19 December 2012
Brian
Trevor

Hi

I went to the Steering Group meeting yesterday and the subject of the staff outing came up.

Could you let me have some ideas for a venue and flesh it out with a bit of detail?

Alton Towers was suggested but I’d prefer something more adult myself.

Cheers,

T

MEMO

SUBJECT
DATE
TO
FROM		 Interview Panel
12 October 2013
Brenda
Geoff

Dear Brenda

Glad to tell you you’re on the interview panel for the new PA job.

Interviews start at 9-30 next Weds. I’ve sent you the CVs of those shortlisted and hope you have time to go through them in time.

Wear your best frock and put them through their paces.

See you then

G

© Roy Johnson 2014

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How to write numbered lists

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tutorial, guidance notes, tips, and conventions

Numbered lists – definition

Numbered lists are used when it is important to draw attention to individual items in a group. They are also used to emphasise an ordered sequence.

Putting items in a numbered list helps a reader to see them both individually and as group. Both can be seen at the same time. Here’s an example:

Our main branch stocks –

  1. electrical goods
  2. household furniture
  3. domestic appliances
  4. leisure and sportswear
  5. fashion and accessories

You can see that the list reveals these different categories of goods more clearly than if the same information is presented in a sentence, with the items separated by commas.

Our main branch stocks electrical goods, household furniture, domestic appliances, leisure and sportswear, fashion and accessories.

Sequence in numbered lists

Numbered lists are especially useful if it is important that the items follow a particular sequence. Here’s an example from a recipe:

Basic scrambled eggs

  1. Melt two ounces of butter in a pan.
  2. Beat two fresh eggs in a bowl.
  3. Add one third of a cup of milk.
  4. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.
  5. Whisk until frothy.
  6. Pour mixture into pan.
  7. Stir continuously until semi-firm.
Parallelism in lists

Numbered and bulleted lists work best when each of the items listed is expressed in the same way. This is known as grammatical parallelism. In the example above, notice that each item begins with an action verb (Melt, Beat, Add) followed by the instruction.

In the next bad example, the items are expressed in a variety of grammatical forms. This blurrs the message being conveyed. In fact the items are also different in kind, because some are instructions, whilst others are information.

Fire regulations [BAD example]

  1. When the fire alarm goes off, you should leave the building.
  2. DON’T use the main stairway, as this could be dangerous.
  3. All fire exits are clearly marked.
  4. The main assembly point is located behind the warehouse.
Punctuation of lists

If the items in the list are expressed as complete sentences, they should be puctuated in the normal way. This means starting with a capital letter and ending with a full stop.

Health and safety regulations

  1. All doors must be locked by 6.00 pm.
  2. Smoking is not permitted in the building.
  3. All staff must be trained in the new fire regulations.
  4. No personal belongings may be left in the office overnight.

If the list items are sentence fragments, short phrases, or single words, there is no need to follow the normal rules of punctuation.

You will need five tools to complete this task:

  1. a screwdriver
  2. a hammer
  3. a spirit level
  4. a pair of pliers
  5. a measuring tape
Indentation of lists

It is common for numbered lists to be shown indented from the rest of the text – as they are on this page.

You can do this manually using the INDENT or TAB key on your keyboard. If you are using Microsoft Word, it will try to take over this process from you, indenting and numbering each sucessive line. This can be very annoying.

Nested lists

Sometimes it may be necessary to have a list within a list. This sometimes happens in lengthy and complex reports.

There are three key issues to be observed in cases of nested lists:

  1. The same general rules of presentation apply.
  2. Indetation is increased to include double indentation.
  3. The nested list needs a different system of numbering.

The secondary system of numbering should be easily distinguishable from the first. Use Roman numerals if necessary. If the numerical ordering is less important, it might be better to use an alphabetical system (a, b, c) or even revert to a bulleted list.

Numbered lists

Numbering systems

The numbers shown in a list can be offered as Arabic numbers (3, 4, 5, 6) or as Roman numerals (VII, XII, IV — or — iii, iv, v, vi). Avoid using Roman numerals unless you have a pressing need to do so, because this gives the reader extra work in comprehension.

Most word-processors will have this numbering feature automated. In Microsoft Word for instance, look under Paragraph -> Numbering.

There is not much point in having a list of items which goes into double figures or beyond. Readers will not be able to remember the order of the items. An exception can be made if it is a document that will be printed and used as a reference guide.

© Roy Johnson 2012

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How to write scientific reports

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conventions, structure, and form of reports

What are scientific reports?

Introduction

The purpose of this guidance note is to explain the criteria for assessment of English language skills in a written report.

1) It outlines the criteria of assessment
2) It summarises what a report is expected to contain
3) It comments on how you can help the reader

1. Criteria for assessment
  1. Communicative quality: is it easy to read?
  2. Ideas and organisation: is the information appropriate and clearly organised?
  3. Grammar and vocabulary: is there a good range of language used so that the meaning is clear and the text is not repetitive?
  4. Surface features: is the punctuation and spelling accurate?
2. What are scientific reports expected to contain

This section looks at the contents of the report structure, and presentation.

Structure

The structure of a report will normally consist of the following items as
a minimum:

  • title
  • authors
  • abstract
  • summary
  • table of contents
  • body of report
  • conclusion
  • references

You need to adjust these sections to suit the purpose of the report. But
each section has a particular role, as follows.

The title – tells the reader directly and at first glance what it is that you are discussing.

The abstract or summary and table of contents – gives the reader an overview of the report and a list of section headings. From these, they can see the points included and decide which ones to look at.

The body – consists of the introduction and component sections.

The introduction should state the purpose of the report and show that you are aware of its terms of reference. That is, you should say what the subject is, and what is its purpose. You should also state any method(s) used and any limitations, and finally indicate how the report is structured. It is important to justify, or say why you are writing the report. You should also give the reader a mind map of what is coming.

Sections of the report should be organised under headings. This forces you to classify information and helps you to remain relevant – in case you are likely to wander off the point.

The conclusion – starts by referring back to the purpose of the report, states the main points arising, draws conclusions, and possibly makes recommendations.

References and appendices. These list the material referred to in your work. Follow any guidelines on format for presentation of references. Appendices provide additional material not included in the text.

Layout and presentation

Layout and presentation involves matters ranging from clear title and section headings, to accurate spelling and punctuation. You must think of your reader. Presenting accurate text is equivalent to speaking clearly. Since you are not around to explain any problems to your reader, editing and checking your text is extremely important.

Scientific reportsJudith Bell, Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education and Social Science, Buckingham: Open University Press (2nd edn) 1993, pp.176. Best-selling UK guide which covers planning and record-keeping, interviewing, reviewing ‘the literature’ of your topic, designing questionnaires, interpreting evidence, and presenting the findings. Each chapter has a summary checklist and its own suggestions for further reading. There’s also a full bibliography and index.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

3. How can you help the reader?

Apart from the points raised above about structure, layout, and presentation, the main tool you have is obviously the language. There are two main points to make: the first is about what we call “signposts”, the second about style.

Signposts

Apart from section headings, you can select language which gives your reader signposts to what you are trying to explain. Signposting helps the person read the text quickly by highlighting the main points and the logic of the argument or discussion. Some examples follow.

1. The first section of your report could start with “The aim of this report…” or “The aim of this project…”

2. Within the first section, the stages could be introduced with “The first stage is…”, “The second stage…”, “This section deals with…”.

3. When you want to give an opinion or evaluate something, you might signpost with “The problem with this is…”, “What is significant about this is…”, “It is important to remember that…”

4. To show that you are drawing a conclusion, introduce the point with “This means that…”, “The result shows that…”, “It is likely that…”

Style

Style means the tone of language you use to address the reader. There are three points to make. You should avoid repetition, avoid a narrative style, and avoid vague language.

Repeat only what is necessary. That is, key words or technical terms. The reader has a memory. To flatter this, you can introduce your repeated point with words like “As mentioned earlier…”, “As discussed above…”

Although it is acceptable to use “I” or “we” in a report, too many sentences with “I” and “we” become repetitive. Avoid: “I had to…” Use: “It was necessary to…”

The reader does not wish to know about everything that happened, but rather your objective assessment of the situation. Avoid: “First we discussed…then we decided…” Use: “The first step was to discuss…It was decided…”

Be precise and be specific. Avoid: “There was a problem so we…” Use: “A problem arose with … which meant it was necessary to…”

Conclusion and recommendations

Read over what you have written and check it against the guidelines. Pay particular attention to punctuation and spelling.

With thanks to Esther Daborn

© Roy Johnson 2004

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How to write surveys

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skills for planning, designing, and writing surveys

What are surveys?

Surveys are usued to gather statistical data, first-hand evidence, or customer feedback and opinions.

Surveys are commonly used to gather information about

  • voting preferences during elections
  • government public health surveys
  • market research on commercial products
  • public opinion on controversial social changes
  • population surveys and census taking
  • data for an academic project or test

Surveys

Surveys are often a form of specialist product research. They are often created by someone who has been trained in market research.

Graduates in Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Mathematics, or Business Studies are often asked to construct and evaluate the results of a survey as part of their coursework.

However, people working in other disciplines are increasingly asked to write surveys as part of their work.

Surveys – the process

If you attempt your own survey, you need to be aware of the procedure outlined here in this example.

  1. Establish the goals of the project – What you want to learn
  2. Determine your sample – Whom you will interview
  3. Choose interviewing methodology – How you will interview
  4. Create your questionnaire – What you will ask
  5. Pre-test the questionnaire, if practical – Test the questions
  6. Conduct interviews and enter data – Ask the questions
  7. Analyze the data – Produce the reports
Surveys – Example

Statement of objectives

I intend to find the main reasons why Mighty Box is more popular than Pink Bucket as a gift container in the north west of England.

Rationale

The results of this survey will inform the marketing team regarding the next advertising campaign due to start 18 May 2014.

Methodology

I will carry out my research by distributing survey sheets to 5000 consumers.

I will create a database which will analyse my results in terms of a stated hierarchy of preferences and reasons.

Implementation

My consumer profile comprises women aged 25-50 in social groups C2 and D.

Location

My survey will be carried out in 17 shopping centres in the north west.

Human resources

I will employ experienced market research personnel in each of the target areas.

Costings

17 researchers @ £7 per hour x 18 hours = £ 2,142.00

Database technician @ £150 per day x 2 days = £ 300.00

Analyst @ £20per hour x 40 hours = £ 600.00

Total cost £ 3,042.00

Surveys – the two main types

There are various purposes in carrying out a survey. Here are the two main types, categorised by the types of question posed – open and closed.

  • Open survey
  • Closed survey

Open questions – What are they?

Open questions are those that allow the respondent to make up their own answer and express it in their own words.

Here are some examples of open questions.

  • Describe your feelings about the rail-crash.
  • What is your current opinion of the NHS?
  • How do you deal with distressed patients?

Closed questions – What are they?

Closed questions have a prescribed answer, as in multiple choice questions. Yes or no answers follow closed questions.

Here are the same topics expressed as closed questions.

  • Do you feel angry, sad or depressed about the rail crash?
  • Do you agree that the NHS is declining in quality?
  • Are you able to control distressed patients?

When are open questions more appropriate?

  • In a survey, open questions yield more authentic opinions and therefore can widen the scope of a survey. This is because the participant may express ideas that you have not thought of.
  • If you are genuinely attempting to find out what a group of people do think or feel, open questions are effective.

When are closed questions more appropriate?

  • When you are seeking to categorise a set of known symptoms, behaviour, beliefs, or feelings, closed questions are more efficient.
  • When you are seeking a certain response, to a given idea, then closed questions can assist your project.
Surveys – Open

Enlightenment

This is an ‘open survey’ – one for which there is no preconceived notion of result.

In other words, you need the result to be as authentic as possible, otherwise it will have no value. You have no vested interest except to know the facts. You will use these facts to inform your next sales strategy or publicity campaign.

Constructing the survey content needs extremely careful thought, planning, and trialling. An inefficient survey can cost you dear.

The open survey. To find authentic information, questions of a very different order are required. Here are some examples of open questions.

Q: I see you have bought a Mighty Box. Please state in one sentence your reason for choosing it.
A: I chose the Mighty Box because it is easy to carry and it is suitable for boys and girls.

Q: Indicate how often you read women’s magazines.
A: Never – every week – every month – every three months.

Q: Tick the content of women’s magazines in order of your preference.
A: None – articles – stories – adverts – horoscopes – readers letters

Q: With which of the following magazines are you most familiar?
A: Hers – Glamour – Lifelong – Woman’s Groan – Modern Girl – none of these.

Surveys – Closed

Publicity and politics

This is a ‘closed survey’ which seeks to gather the information which will support a belief or a statement of belief. In this case you know at the outset what result you are seeking.

For example, if you are a toothpaste company and you want to use statistics in your advertising campaign, you need to find those people who already use your product and are happy with it.

If you want to convince your management team that the main office is in need of refurbishment, you might construct a survey which will give you results to convince them. In this case, you might even include some Health and Safety issues to create a more powerful effect.

The closed survey demands ‘closed questions’. These are most likely to give you the responses you seek. Here are some examples of closed questions with their predicted answers

Q: How long have you been enjoying Mr. Stipling’s cakes?
A: Ever since they came out in 1976.

Analytical statement: ‘X number of people stated that they had enjoyed the cakes for many years’.

Q: When you relax and read Woman’s Groan, what do you like best about it?
A: I only read Woman’s Groan for the horoscopes. I don’t read the rest of it.

Analytical statement: ‘In a recent survey, over X thousand women said they found Woman’s Groan relaxing.’

Surveys – Guidelines for user-friendliness

1. Decide at the outset which of two methods you will use:

  • hand over the questionnaire for each subject to complete
  • read out the questions and fill in the results yourself

2. If you hand over the questionnaire, you need to –

  • Make all your questions simple and clear
  • Make the text large enough to be legible in the street
  • Make the questions answerable with a tick or one word

3. If you decide ask the questions, you need to –

  • phrase questions so that they sound like a spoken sentence
  • keep the survey out of sight of your subject, so that they actually listen rather than read over your shoulder

4. Always explain the context and the purpose of the questionnaire.

5. Avoid including the individual’s identity, or if you need it in some cases, ask permission to include it.

6. Always thank your subject for co-operating with your research.

Processing your data

7. Creating a database is the best way of dealing with survey results. This way, you can find a variety of results which will be done automatically, saving you hours of manual labour.

8. A database will also help you to generate results that you may not have anticipated at the outset.

Using the data

9. Use the data to inform your activities in as many ways as possible. The authentic survey is extremely valuable for such purposes as

  • correcting an ineffective publicity strategy
  • checking on the efficacy or usability of a product
  • assessing public relations in your company
  • using ideas generated by your employees
  • checking on employee morale

10. When acting on the results of your survey, publish your results as an integral part of your action statements.

11. For example, if your survey has shown that employees are not happy with the level of Health and Safety in your organisation, state that you are responding to their input into the survey.

12. If, as a result of the survey you need to make changes to your product or service, give your employees the benefit of the survey results.

Expressing the results of your survey

13. Charts, diagrams or tables are better than narrative explanation when it comes to expressing survey results.

14. A graph or bar chart showing preferences makes a bigger impact than a page of written text on the subject.

15. There are many easy-to-use electronic applications for creating graphics such as those needed to express statistics. They work in conjunction with databases.

16.A spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel can output its data in the form of bar-charts, columns, and pie charts.

© Roy Johnson 2014

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How We Write

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a study of the creative process

If you are interested in the process of writing – the means by which we think of ideas, translate them into words, and record them as text – then this is a book you will not want to miss. Mike Sharples deals with some of the central paradoxes in this most intellectualised form of culture. For instance, he considers how writing is a demanding mental activity, yet some people appear to write easily; how it demands the constraints of grammar, yet creative writers break these rules; how most writing involves planning, yet it also makes use of ‘inspiration’ and chance discovery in the process of composition.

How We WriteThese are conundrums to which he offers interesting solutions, based upon the central notion of the writer as a ‘creative designer’. He starts with the ways in which ideas and narratives are conceptualized before they are committed to paper. Then he pursues the notion of creativity acting to produce results which are intelligible and acceptable, because they are enacted within a series of cultural constraints. The very encouraging part of this analysis is that as he points out, creativity is not something rare, but is quite normal. There are qualitative differences in the results, to be sure, but most ordinary people can come up with ideas, given a problem.

Next he deals with ‘Writing as design’ – which considers the physical context in which writing takes place, with some interesting comparisons between writing and and architectural design. He writes eloquently on the psychological pleasures of writing with a pencil – then goes on to compare the advantages of writing using different media – including word-processors.

Given that he obviously wishes to get close to the writing process, it’s slightly surprising that he doesn’t examine author’s notebooks, manuscripts and revisions. There are plenty of examples (Henry James, Virginia Woolf) where we can get fairly close to the creative process – though he does at one point look at some of Wordsworth’s drafts of his poetry.

He identifies three activities as essential to the writing process – planning, composing, and revising. Not surprisingly, as an academic he is a firm believer in planning, and he describes the advantages and shortcomings of lists, mind mapping, and outlining:

A draft text is itself a plan for further writing and…composing a free and unconstrained draft and then organising this into a more coherent text is one successful approach to writing.

On the process of composition he makes a brave attempt to deal with what constitutes good style, and practitioners of creative writing will be interested in what he says about how narratives are structured and developed. Dealing with the revision process, he encouragingly points out that writers are privileged in being able to revise their products so easily – unlike architects and sculptors for instance – and the advent of the word processor has made this process very easy indeed.

He also observes that experienced writers usually revise their work at a structural as well as a surface level – whereas the less experienced merely make changes at word and sentence level.

There are some interesting tips on making this process of revision easier – to which I would have added the best advice I have come across – edit in separate passes through the text for different purposes – because it’s less tiring than trying to keep several issues in mind at once.

The various strategies of creative writing are discussed using the metaphors of planning, building, discovering, and exploring. These analogies are thought-provoking, but it is quotations from practising writers which bring the arguments to life. This actually becomes a consideration of the psychology of writing, and the often pathological connection between creativity and depression, anxiety, and even suicide.

Next he deals with what he calls the materiality of the text – how it is printed and laid out. This involves choice of typeface, use of space, page layout, text decoration, and all the other aspects of what is printed and how it affects our interpretation of what we read.

This is a quasi-marxist form of interpretation which considers the relationship between writing and the society in which it is produced and read. He invokes the Russian formalist Bahktin and post-Structuralist literary theorists to argue that texts may not have fixed meanings, and that writers negotiate (even if unconsciously) with the cultural and moral frameworks of the societies in which they live.

A penultimate chapter on the various forms of collaborative writing will be of interest to those concerned with scientific writing – one of the few areas in which it is still regularly practised. And he ends, logically enough, with the new possibilities opened up by the digitization of text and electronic writing. Apart from writing for the Web, this involves the possibilities of hypertext fiction, writing in MOOs, and voice recognition as possible spurs to creativity.

The writing is fluent and accessible throughout. This is a humane and thought-provoking book which operates successfully at a number of levels. It offers wise counsel to aspiring writers; fresh approaches to the more experienced; and even new paths to be explored for those in academic research studying the relationship between thinking and its presentation as the written word.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Mike Sharples, How We Write: Writing as creative design, London: Routledge, 1999, pp.224, ISBN: 0415185874

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Hyphens in essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Hyphens in essays are most commonly used to join words when forming compounds:

mother-in-law     president-elect

matter-of-fact     author-critic

2. They are also used after prefixes – especially where it is necessary to avoid an awkward or confusing sequence of letters:

re-enter    co-operation    pre-ignition

3. Notice the difference between a compound word and the same terms used separately:

a fifteenth-century manuscript     in the fifteenth century

4. Hyphens should be used where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity:

two-year-old cats   — two year-old cats

In the first case, all the cats are two years old. In the second case, two cats are each one year old.

5. Hyphens should also be used to distinguish terms which are spelled identically, but which have different meanings:

reformation  re-formation
recover   re-cover
resign   re-sign

6. Hyphens are used when new terms are formed from compounds, but they are dropped when the compound is accepted into common usage. (This process is usually more rapid in the USA than in Europe.)

bathtub —   was once bath-tub

bookshelf —   was once book-shelf

clubhouse —   was once club-house

7. This phenomenon is currently visible in computer technology,where all three forms of a term may co-exist:

Word processor —   Word-processor —   Wordprocessor

© Roy Johnson 2003

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