In the course of professional or educational development, one is more than likely to encounter the need to find out what is a report in personal experience. Different activities, whether at work or in college, often require a certain description of the conducted work to be provided to the superior staff such as the teacher or manager. Reports take different forms, from scientific to journalist, and from individual to group-assigned. The technique of writing a report is often used at educational establishments in order to teach the students to revise and reconsider the gained knowledge – it is a way of looking back at the conducted work or research and outlining the most significant points of the study. Thus, if one wishes to undergo personal development in higher education, he/she is surely bound to find out what is a report sooner or later.
Defining and Reporting
A report is a specific set of information, usually, but not always, presented in written form, which is aimed to accurately describe the main events of a certain occasion. What divides a report from any other type of academic or journalist work, such as an article or an essay, is the fact that most reports are formatted in the fixed criteria (set by teacher, manager, or other superior staff), and, at the same time, aim to provide their findings as an informative and relatively public presentation.
Types of Reports
A report can take quite a number of forms. It can be a scientific report, which concludes the results of the conducted experiment, a journalist report, which is an article or news bulletin about a recent important public event, a business analytical report, which may describe a company’s sales, and many others. One may conclude that reports are used as a source of information in numerous fields such as education, science, technology, medicine, banking, business, management, politics, history, sociology, and basically in any other sphere of human practice. One of the most common types of reports is an academic report – a form of an assignment that requires the student to reveal his/her recent findings in a specific field of study. Reports can also be both oral and written, as well as take the forms of accounts, annual reports, sales and budget reports, inspections, military reports, recommendations, statistics, and other informative presentations. Besides text, reports often contain other data such as graphs and charts.
The Purpose of the Report
The main and most obvious purpose of any report is to inform the audience regarding certain findings. It does not usually contain the author’s opinion, but rather a collection of raw data that allows the audience to analyze it on its own. Reports are designed to present relevant and important information in an effective way. Reports are often used as an academic assignment in order to teach the student not only to gain a certain amount of knowledge, but also be able to recollect and present this knowledge in an appropriate scientific manner. Reports are the informational basis that allows to use its findings to make the best possible decision in any situation.