Concise Summary of Deborah Luchuk's "Successful Business Communication: Bridging the Gap"

The main purpose of this correspondence is to provide a summary of the most important information relating to informal report writing as indicated in Chapter Eight of Deborah Luchuk's book. In particular, this memo summarizes the main types of informal reports, the use or purpose of these reports, planning, organizing, and writing informal reports, editing and review of reports to meet the needs of readers, and ways of effectively communicating information in these reports to organizational leaders.

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Internal reports refer to solicited or unciliated internal business communications containing routine information on everyday life activities and events that affect organizations (p.198). They are used for giving an account of incidents that happen at work, the progress of a critical project, and business trips so as to support business functions such as financial management, planning g, and operations (p.199). The commonly prepared types of informal reports include information/evaluation, expense, progress, and incident reports. Progress reports are used for detailing the progress of a project team regarding a work assignment while incident reports give a description of an event that has occurred in the workplace, with a project, or on a worksite, such as corporate espionage, misuse of funds, insubordination, harassment, or an accident (p.199). Further, expense reports provide a detailed persuasive narrative of all the expenses that one has incurred while working on a work assignment or project and a justification for these spendings while information reports are opinionated reports that provide impartial facts to the reader to inform decision-making.

The starting point in informal report writing usually entails knowing as much as possible about one's audience or the primary and secondary readers of their report and to do this, a report writer has to ask themselves why they are writing the report (p.199). When writing solicited reports - those which one has been specifically asked to write - the writer has to understand that even though the reader already knows about the topic of the report, it is them who are experts and hence should be as detailed as possible. However, for unsolicited reports that one prepares without being requested to do so, the writer must always assume that the readers do not know anything about the topic, hence such reports should always be written comprehensively with due respect for the position of the readers (p.199).

Another step in the informal writing process as outlined in Luchuk's book is conducting research. Conducting research to obtain the relevant information that readers look for in expense, incident, and progress reports is an important part of report writing preparation since the quality of the report depends on how comprehensive the research is. Researching will help provide one with current, appropriate, and accurate information on the topic and help build their reputation as a capable or conscientious individual. The main sources of information that one may rely on include the Internet, company records, interviews, email or telephone inquiries, and observations.

The other stage in the informal report writing process as brought out in the chapter is the preparation for citations. According to Luchuk, the quality or professionalism of a report is determined by the type and nature of information sources used to support claims and opinions (p.200). While the information relied on to write a report should always be sufficient, it must be "as unbiased as possible" (p.200). Furthermore, the format of each of the main types of informal reports is important as part of organizing and writing. To get started writing any type of informal report, a person should organize the information gathered appropriately using headings and subheadings "to avoid overwhelming your reader" (p.201). The report should also be divided into various sections: introduction, background, the report, and a conclusion. For instance, a progress report should be organized into different sections including summary, background, progress (planned work, work completed, challenges, and schedule), future plans, conclusion, and evidence. Incident reports, on their part, have to be divided into headings such as introduction, investigation, assessment, conclusion, and recommendation while expense reports must have an introduction, activities for items purchased, benefits, costs, conclusion, recommendations, and attachment (p.203).

Additionally, the format of an evaluation report consists of an introduction, overview or background, methodology, findings, assessment or recommendations, and conclusion (p.209). Generally, the summary or introduction section of an informal report is a condensed version of the whole report which provides a summary of what the report is about or its scope, objectives, and findings. The background part provides the basis or justification for writing the report and notes any challenges, progress, what happened, the information obtained, investigation, and activities (p.210). The assessment or recommendations section of an informal report evaluates the information gathered or the findings and recommends the most appropriate action to be taken by the business to address the main issue investigated by the reporter. The report should also contain evidence in the form of attachments that support the claims, activities, and findings or documents used. The conclusion part caps it all by restating the thesis of the report and wraps up the entire report.

Conclusion

The last aspects of the informal writing process include the evaluation of online sources, content editing, copy editing, format review, and preparation. Even for informal reports, the verifiability and reliability of the information used as a basis for research are crucial as the use of trustworthy, credible, and accurate data in business communications gives an impression that one is a valuable and professional employee (p.219). Hence, it is important for one to carefully evaluate any information obtained from online sources as some tend to be misleading, non-factual, based on opinions, biased, unsupported by evidence, or of less persuasive value and lack credibility. One should thus properly document their sources, use a valid search method, beware of bias, ignore blogs, and assess the quality of websites (p.219). Also, checking the report for any errors or mistakes through content or copy editing and format review is necessary to ensure a flawless, accurate, and coherent report. After this, the informal report is ready for oral presentation.

Reference

Luchuk, D. (2013). Successful business communication: Bridging the gap, second edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.