Report Design: Musts, Shoulds, and Mights

TODAY
1) A Report: What you must have, what you should
have, and what you MIGHT have
2) Anderson: designing good documents
3) Activity: Outline (like a boss)
4) Remember to turn in your case study!
5) Homework

Reports
So we’ve talked a great deal about what you need to
do to find data, to treat data, to cite data, etc.
Today, I want to take a step in the lateral direction,
and we’re going to talk about the actual FORM of your
reports.
It’s time for a game of “Must, Should, Might”

…have a title.
Seriously. Reports with no title are laaaame.
The title should also tell the reader quite a
bit about the report.

…have an introduction.
And we know what the introduction should
do, from our readings. Quick, concise, but
tell us what the report is about. Prep me!

…have a reference list.
Not citing your sources = plagiarism.
Plagiarism=stealing. Stealing=you’re not
professional. Don’t do it!

…have content, with headings.
Content matters, obviously.
But the heading part is big. Headings
organize our documents.

…have a conclusion.
Reports don’t just end. You need to indicate
that the ending has come by summarizing
and literally bringing the report to a close.

…use signposting.
In other words, tell us where we’re going,
tell us where we’ve been. Don’t shock us.
Lead the way!

…include data visualization.
It will be rare for any of you to have data
that doesn’t feature, at least at one point,
some sort of complex data. Remember the
graphic ways to express that data.

…be well designed.
Easy to read. Easy to scan. That’s what your
report should be.

…need an appendix.
If you have a large chunk of data that is too
cumbersome to include, in raw form, to put
into your report, you can always include it as
an appendix that the reader can access after
reading.

…use a table of contents.
If your report gets long, or your headings get
too copious, a table of contents can make
the report easier for readers to
scan/navigate.

…have a separate title page.
Depending on where you’re presenting it,
and to what audience, you might have a
page JUST for the title and your name.

…include a summary or abstract.
Again, depending on the audience, you
might need to preface your report with a
short summary (often called an “abstract”).

…feature multi-media external
links.
You might have audio, or video. And that’s
okay.

To those ends…
… the chapter from Anderson I had you read for today
talks about document design and page design. The big
take-away, of course, is “The grid.”
Grid based design dominates the world wide web, and most
magazines and newspapers. Basically, the concept is that you
place information into a grid– like a piece of graph paper– so
that it is easier to access and read.

For a report…
You won’t want to go with a grid as crazy as most websites;
while that works for screen reading, it would make your
report cumbersome. But you might want to utilize a two
column approach, or to include break-out boxes for your
report. If you want to get inventive, you might present your
report in a brochure format, or even as a webpage, and with
that decision would come other grid options.

So you want…
… to think through how you want your reader to
encounter your information. Particularly if you’re
including images, tables, infographics, etc. the idea of
designing your pages on the grid will make a big
difference.
Think about directions we read online vs. when you
had to set them up on a single column page.

The basic premise of the grid…
… is that presenting textual data in simple pages is often NOT
user friendly. It is actually, believe it or not, more difficult to
read certain forms of prose in full page format.
Why do you imagine so many journals, magazines and
newspapers have smaller columns while novels and poetry
use full-page design?

Activity: a “design” outline
Hopefully at this point you have some sense of how
your report would look. I want you to spend some
time here in class thinking about a “design” minded
outline. What I mean is, obviously, you need to think
about the content, but I want you to focus in THIS
particular activity on how you want to present your
report. How do you want this thing to look? How do
you want it to be read?

Remember…
… that your case studies are due, via email, preferably as a
PDF though .doc(x) is fine, too.
No actual homework for next class. In honor of Halloween,
we’re going to do something a little bit fun that I think will
also help you to think more about what we’ve discussed
today.
See you bright and early on Thursday!

Report Design: Musts, Shoulds, and Mights

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