Chapter 8 Reports: Informing and Explaining. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.8 | 2 Overview Looks at the genre of reports—documents

Chapter 8

Reports: Informing and Explaining

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 8 | 2

Overview

• Looks at the genre of reports—documents designed to inform and explain

• Reports range from simple to complex, and take many different formats

• Gives strategies to select, organize, and deliver information


The Genre of Report Writing

• Reports inform and explain

• They range in purpose and audience, depending on the context

• Reports take an objective, factual tone


Why do reports takean objective tone?

• The focus of a report is not on the writer,but on the content.

• The tone is then objective, factual, formal.


Examples of Reports

• News reports

• Research articles in professional journals

• Organizational fact sheets

• Brochures

• Informational Web sites


Research and Reports

• Reports are often written to answer a question.

• They involve gathering information anddoing research.


Readings

• Two articles on the Mentally Ill 1. A short piece from the Associated Press that ran

in many local papers

2. A longer article from the New York Times

• The Sentencing Project, “New Incarceration Figures: Growth in Population Continues”


More Readings

• Barbara Kruger, “I Shop, Therefore I Am”

• Milton Glaser, “Dylan”

• Daniel Pauly and Reg Watson, “Counting the Last Fish”

• Edward R. Tufte, “PowerPoint is Evil” (can be used with Ellen Lupton’s “PowerPoint Do’s and Don’ts” in Chapter 21)


An Informational Web Site

• The Triangle Factory Fire gives background about “one of the worst industrial disasters of the twentieth century,” (269).

• http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire


Writing assignment

• Your assignment is to write a report. There is a list of six options on pages 275-276.

• The list includes: news report, fact sheet, explanatory essay, article, brochure, andWeb site.

• Your instructor will let you know whether your class will be doing this particular assignment, and provide you with additional guidelines.


Web sites for news

• New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/

• Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/

• CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/

• Time, http://www.time.com/time/


The Writing Process

• The last part of the chapter takes you through the writing process; notice the use of questions to prepare you for doing research.

• There are suggestions to help you organize and present the information you find, as well as suggestions to guide peer review and revision.


Student Sample

• See the essay by Michael E. Crouch (“Lost in a Smog,” pages 281-287).

• Note the comment that he is following the typical layout of an article in Scientific American; he uses a headline, photos, sidebars, and information boxes.

• See the list of questions, page 287.


Student Companion Website

• Go to the student side of the Web site for exercises, chapter overviews, and links to writing resources for this chapter:

http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e

Documents

Chapter 8 Reports: Informing and Explaining. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.8 | 2 Overview Looks at the genre of reports—documents