This page is still under construction.

Aims

The Report Writing course helps students write reports and business documents. Students who complete the course successfully will be able to brainstorm, write, and edit business letters based on various letter formats. They will be able to prepare memos and reports. they will use style sheets and manuals to prepare footnotes and bibliographies.

Course outline

• Business presentation packages
• Writing techniques
  • Style sheets and style manuals
  • Brainstorming
  • Prewriting
  • Editing
  • Critical and forceful writing
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Footnotes
• Bibliography
• Letters
  • Effective business letters
  • Letter formats
  • Letters of application
  • Cover letters
• Resumes
• Business memos
• Proposals
• Reports
  • Types of reports
  • Research for business reports
  • Progress Reports

Expanded Syllabus

Topical Key to the Alphabetical Entries

This tabulation arranges the alphabetical entries into subject categories. Within each category the entries are listed mainly, but not strictly, in alphabetical order. Excluded from this tabulation are the numerous entries concerned with the usage of particular words or phrases (imply/infer, already/all ready, and the like). For a list of the key entries in a recommended sequence of steps for any writing project, see the Checklist of the Writing Process.

Types of Business Writing

• Abstracts
• Correspondence
  • Acceptance Letters
  • Acknowledgment Letters
  • Adjustment Letters
  • Application Letters (see also Resumes)
  • Collection Letters
  • Complaint Letters
  • Credit Letters
  • Dictation
  • Form Letters
  • Inquiry Letters and Responses
  • International Correspondence
  • Memorandums
  • Order Letters
  • Reference Letters
  • Refusal Letters
  • Resignation Letter or Memorandum
  • Sales Letters
  • Transmittal Letters
• Description
• Executive Summaries
• Forms Design
• Instructions
• Job descriptions
• Journal Articles
• Literature Reviews
• Minutes of Meetings
• Newsletter (House Organ) Articles
• News Releases
• Policies and Procedures
• Process Explanation
• Proposals
  • Internal Proposals
  • Sales Proposals
• Questionnaires
• Reports
  • Annual Reports
  • Feasibility Reports
  • Formal Reports
  • Investigative Reports
  • Literature Reviews
  • Oral Presentations
  • Progress and Activity Reports
  • Trip Reports
  • Trouble Reports

Finding a Job

• Acceptance Letters
• Application Letters
• Interviewing for a Job
• Job Search
• Refusal Letters
• Resumes

Planning and Research

• Preparation
  • Objective (Purpose)
  • Readers
  • Scope
• Research
  • Interviewing for Information
  • Listening
  • Library Research
    • Bibliography
    • Copyright
    • Documenting Sources
    • Note Taking
    • Paraphrasing
    • Plagiarism
    • Reference Books
  • Questionnaires
  • Quotations

Organization, Writing, and Revision

• Collaborative Writing
• Forms of Discourse
  • Description
  • Exposition
  • Narration
  • Persuasion
• Methods of Development
  • Cause-and-Effect
  • Chronological
  • Comparison
  • Decreasing Order of Importance
  • Definition
  • Division and Classification
  • General to Specific
  • Increasing Order of Importance
  • Sequential
  • Spatial
  • Specific to general
• Organization
• Outlining
• Proofreading
• Revision
  • Clarity
  • Coherence
  • Conciseness
  • Defining Terms
  • Logic
  • Transition
  • Unity
• Word Processing
• Writing a Draft
  • Concluding
  • Conclusions
  • Introductions
  • Openings
  • Point of View
  • Titles

Format and Illustrations

• Format
  • Heads
  • Indentation
  • Lists
  • Quotations
• Illustrations
  • Computer Graphics
  • Flowcharts
  • Graphs
  • Maps
  • Organizational Charts
  • Photographs
  • Tables
• Layout and Design

Language, Style, and Usage

• Language
  • Absolute Words
  • Abstract/Concrete Words
  • Affectation
  • Antonyms
  • Blend Words
  • Clichés
  • Clipped Forms of Words
  • Compound Words
  • Connotation/Denotation
  • Contractions
  • Defining Terms
  • Diction (see also Word Choice)
  • Dictionaries
  • Double Negative
  • Elegant Variation
  • English as a Second Language
  • Euphemism
  • Foreign Words in English
  • Glossary
  • Gobbledygook
  • Idioms
  • Intensifiers
  • Jargon
  • Long Variants
  • Malapropisms
  • New Words
  • Prefixes
  • Suffixes
  • Synonyms
  • Thesauruses
  • Trite Language
  • Vague Words
  • Varieties of English
  • Vogue Words
  • Word Choice
• Style
  • Allusion
  • Ambiguity
  • Awkwardness
  • Business Writing Style
  • Clarity
  • Coherence
  • Comparison
  • Conciseness/Wordiness
  • Emphasis
  • Figures of Speech
    • Hyperbole
    • Metaphor
    • Simile
  • Jammed Modifiers
  • Nominalizations
  • Pace
  • Parallel Structure
  • Paraphrasing
  • Point of View
  • Positive Writing
  • Repetition
  • Rhetorical Questions
  • Subordination
  • Sweeping Generalization
  • Telegraphic Style
  • Tone
  • Unity
  • You Viewpoint

Paragraphs, Sentences, Clauses, and Phrases

• Paragraphs
  • Coherence
  • Topic Sentences
  • Transition
  • Unity
• Sentences
  • Sentence Types
    • Simple Sentences
    • Complex Sentences
    • Compound Sentences
    • Compound-Complex Sentences
  • Modifiers
    • Dangling Modifiers
    • Jammed Modifiers
    • Misplaced Modifiers
  • Sentence Construction
    • Comma splice
    • Complements
    • Objective Complements
    • Subjective Complements
    • Expletives
    • Garbled Sentences
    • Mixed Constructions
    • Objects
    • Predicates
    • Sentence Faults
    • Sentence Fragments
    • Sentence Variety
    • Subjects
    • Subordination
    • Voice
• Clauses
  • Dependent Clauses
  • Independent Clauses
  • Restrictive and nonrestrictive Elements
• Phrases
  • Infinitive Phrases
  • Participial Phrases
  • Prepositional Phrases
  • Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Elements
  • Verb Phrases

Parts of Speech, Inflection, and Agreement

• Parts of Speech
  • Adjectives
  • Articles
  • Comparative Degree
  • Demonstrative Adjectives
  • Indefinite Adjectives
  • Infinitives (as adjectives)
  • Numeral Adjectives
  • Participles
• Adverbs
  • Conjunctive Adverbs
  • Coordinating Conjunctions
  • Correlative Conjunctions
  • Subordinating Conjunctions
• Interjections
• Nouns
  • Appositives
  • Collective Nouns
  • Common Nouns
  • Gerunds
  • Infinitives
  • Plurals
  • Possessive Case
  • Proper Nouns
  • Substantives
• Prepositions
• Pronouns
  • Agreement of Pronouns and Antecedents
  • Case
  • Demonstrative Pronouns
  • Gender
  • Indefinite Pronouns
  • Number
  • Person
  • Personal Pronouns
  • Pronoun Reference
  • Reciprocal Pronouns
  • Reflexive Pronouns
  • Relative Pronouns
• Verbs
  • Agreement of Subjects and Verbs
  • Helping Verbs
  • Linking Verbs
  • Mood
  • Number
  • Person
  • Tense
  • Verbals
    • Gerunds
    • Infinitives
    • Participles
  • Verb Phrases
  • Voice