Online Technical Writing:
Planning Reports—Invention

Analyzing Your Report's Audience and Purpose
Audience Analysis and the Invention Stage
Exercises
Model: Example Report Topic Proposal (memo)
This section shows you an important technique for the early stages of your report-writing project: the invention stage, brainstorming what you can say about a reoport topic you have chosen.

Analyzing your report's audience and purpose

Early in your planning for a technical report, you must identify the specific audience that will read your report and the purpose your report will serve. To analyze the report audience, you must consider these questions carefully:

Why does the audience need or want this report?
What is the audience's technical background (knowledge, training, first-hand experience)?
What is the report's purpose?
What kinds of information will have to be included and excluded from the report, considering the audience?
How should the information in the report be presented?
If you are not familiar with analyzing report audiences and purposes, return to the section where this is covered. Understanding the audience and purpose of your report becomes very important when you narrow your report subject.

Step 3. Briefly describe your audience, its background, capabilities, and interest in your report. (See the step-by-step method of analyzing audiences.)

Invention stage

Once you've picked a subject for your report, the next step is to list the topics related to it. During this stage, the "invention" or "brainstorming" stage, use the following suggestions to explore your report idea:
Let your report subject itself suggest topics: for example,
Subject               Possible topics

The sun                its temperature
                       its composition
                       its unusual phenomenon
                       its relative size

Ultrasound in          its physical properties
medicine               equipment used
                       medical uses
                       advantages
Free associate on your report subject; sit back, relax, and let your mind wander freely around the report subject. Keep scratch paper handy, however. Don't expect the ideas to come all at once in a ten-minute session: ideas for reports come at the oddest moments--in the shower, on the bus, in your backyard, in your car, or on your bicycle.

Use an invention checklist like the following. If you ask yourself the questions listed below, you'll be less apt to overlook important topics; and, with use, these questions eventually become almost automatic.


GENERATING TOPICS FOR REPORT OUTLINES:
A Checklist of Invention Questions

Set up a report worksheet to scribble answers to any of the following questions that apply to your report project.



Problems or needs                       Does your report concern itself with a problem or a need?

Solutions and answers                   Should your report discuss potential solutions or answers
                                         to the problems or questions presented in the report?

Historical events and natural           Does your report concern itself with some historical event
phenomena                               or natural (or mechanical) phenomenon?

Causes and effects                      Should your report discuss the causes, effects, or both related
                                        to the phenomenon, historical event, or problem you are discussing?

Descriptions                            Which aspects of your report subject require description?

Processes                               Does your report subject involve processes, procedures, routines,
                                        or repetitive events that must be discussed in steps?

Classes                                 Can any topic within your report be divided into classes or types?

Comparisons to similar or               Can similar things in your report be or compared to each other?
familiar things                         Can you compare something complex in your report to something
                                        familiar or common?

Illustrative examples                   Will a discussion of examples related to your report subject be
                                        effective?

Theoretical background                  Are there unfamiliar terms in your report? Can they be presented
(definitions)                           in a theoretical or background section? If so, list the terms.

Applications                            Can you discuss the applications related to your report subject?

Advantages and benefits                 Should you discuss the advantages or benefits related to your
                                        technical report subject?

Disadvantages and limitations           Are certain disadvantages, problems, limitations, or drawbacks
                                        associated with your report subject?

Warnings, cautions, and guidelines      Does your report need cautionary or guideline statements?

Economics or financial considerations   Should you discuss cost factors, purchase expenses, maintenance and
                                        operation costs, production or output costs, or savings?

Importance of the report subject        Should you discuss the importance of your subject, why people should
                                        concerned about it or interested in it?

Historical background and important     Is there some important historical background--events and
names                                   names--that should be discussed in your report?

Future developments                     Should your report speculate about future developments or possi-
                                        bilities related to the report subject?

Social, political, legal, or ethical    Does your report subject raise certain social or ethical questions,
implications                            as for example, certain medical technologies do?

Reasons for or against                  In your report, should you try to convince readers to take certain
                                        actions or think a certain way concerning your report subject?

Conclusions                             Should your report draw certain conclusions about what it discusses?

Recommendations                         Should your report make certain recommendations to its readers?

Alternatives or choices                 Should your report discuss several alternatives or choices related to
                                        report subject matter?

Criteria                                Will your report use certain criteria to draw its conclusions or to
                                        make its recommendations?

Tests and methods used                  Should you have a section on the tests you perform, the methods or
                                        theories you use, or the procedures and equipment you use?

Statistical presentations and analyses  Should you include sections that summarize and analyze the data you
                                        collect in your project?

Legal and administrative demands        Should your report discuss which agencies to apply to, which forms to
                                        fill out, or which steps to take in order to accomplish the purpose of
                                        your report?

Business or professional contexts       Should you describe the specific business or professional situation,
                                        for example, a supervisor's orders, that generates the need for
                                        your report?  (This applies if you invent a report-writing situation
                                        also.)

Figure 2. Invention checklist for reports

Here is an excerpt of a brainstorming session in which these questions were used:

Comprehensive topic list for a report on wind-powered electrical systems how does a wind-powered electrical system (WPES) work? what are the steps in its operation? savings: discuss the amount of money that can be saved using WPES relationship between average windspeeds and electrical output: what happens when there's no wind, only very light breezes? too much wind? basic parts: rotor, generator, tail assembly, tower different manufacturers of WPES: how to get a good system and avoid being ripped off dimensions, materials, construction of common models of WPES; sensitivity to low wind speeds historical background on WPES: the time when more WPES were being used, just before rural electrifi- cation in the 1930s; who were the first developers? when has interest in WPES reappeared? why? two general class of wind machines: lift and drag machines lightning protection of WPES aerodynamic principles as they apply to WPES understanding weather patterns and seasonal and geographical factors affecting wind principles of electricity: circuits, generators, types of current, meanings of terminology Federal tax credits and research support in wind systems research and WPES purchase by consumers

Figure 3. Example of a topic list developed with the invention checklist

Step 4. Use any of the invention questions in Figure 2 that apply to your report project, and make a topic list like the one in Figure 3. (If you are not quite ready for this step, go directly to Step 6, and return to this step.)

Exercises

Pick any report topic from the list in Figure 1 or pick a topic of your own, decide on an audience and purpose for a report on that topic, and then use the Checklist of Invention Questions (Figure 2) for brainstorming the topic (jot your ideas on scratch paper).

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Online Technical Writing:Planning Reports—Invention

Analyzing your report's audience and purpose

Invention stage

Exercises

Online Technical Writing:
Planning Reports—Invention