APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Organizing your report: other essential sections
Perfecting specialized writings: APA reports
Perfecting presentation: beginnings, endings, and other writings

Within the organizational structure of reports, APA designates the following sections as options for report organization.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgements recognize people who were instrumental in creating the report, but not usually team members who wrote the report. This section includes the person who asked for the report, as well as your immediate supervisor. Never miss an opportunity to acknowledge your immediate supervisor.

Glossary

A glossary (or definition of terms) should be included in technical reports, with approximately six or more terms that the audience is unfamiliar with. A glossary increases readability of reports by listing terms in a common section. For an example of a glossary in research writing, see Chapter 13.

Executive summary

An executive summary (see Figure 17-5), common to business documents, differs depending on its purpose. (See an example of a model executive summary in Chapter 13.) Executive summaries range between 200 and 250 words. An executive summary is prepared for the busy executive who lacks time to read the full report. It identifies the importance of the report and highlights results without analyzing information.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 17-5: An example of an executive summary.

Transmittal memo

Transmittal memos (memos is more commonly used as the plural form, rather than the formal memorandum) describe the document that is being transmitted from the memo writer to the document reader. Reports and other business documents are commonly passed on to the reader with a transmittal memo. Receiving a document without a transmittal memo is like receiving a package in the mail with no explanation. The one-page or shorter memo (see Figure 17-6 for a sample) contains three or four paragraphs and is organized in three parts as follows:

· An opening that builds a relationship between the writer and reader

· A body that identifies the problem, explains its significance, and offers a solution

· A closing that builds goodwill toward the organization receiving the memo

Although APA doesn’t address memo formatting, a couple of memo formatting styles are acceptable in the business community. One standard format used in the transmittal memo shown here includes flush-left, single-spaced block paragraphs with an extra line between the paragraphs. No paragraph indentation is included.

Table of contents

Although designated as an optional section, a table of contents in a report, especially a report exceeding four or five pages, improves organizational structure and the capability to easily retrieve information. See Chapter 13 for models of tables of contents. You can’t complete the table of contents until you finalize the report and identify page numbers. Verify that table of content headings are structured to be parallel and that wording duplicates headings in the report.

Methodology

If applicable as an optional section, a methodology section contains a description of materials and procedures used to obtain data. A detailed description of methodology permits other researchers to duplicate the study.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 17-6: An example of a transmittal memo.

Recommendations

Recommendations can be an optional section of a report or a dedicated report itself, such as recommendations for successful low-cost employee incentives. Figure 17-7 shows a sample of a recommendation in the conclusion of a report.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 17-7: Model language from the recommendations of a report.

Appendixes

APA accommodates audio and video clips as in-text hyperlinks or supplemental content in an appendix. See Chapter 13 for more uses of appendixes.

Discussion

Discussion can be a separate subheading in the conclusion, or the conclusion can include discussion without a subheading. Regardless of the labeling, a discussion begins with a brief explanation of the results, followed by an analysis of the results, especially an economic analysis. An analysis includes who was affected and how they were affected. It also includes how well the report answered the focused question and identifies topics needing further research.

Question your professor when report writing

Ask your professor the following questions about report writing:

· Do you have specifications for required and optional sections?

· What do you suggest for the ideal range of pages in the major content sections of the report?

· Do you require a recommendations section?

· Is it acceptable to include tables and figures?

· Are links to additional materials acceptable?

· Do you distinguish between an essay assignment and a report assignment?

· Is the audience for the report horizontal or vertical, and internal or external?

· Do you prefer running heads?

· Do you prefer page numbering to begin on the title page?