Short
Business Report: Guidelines
This
document provides an outline for the short business report. Please follow this
format when preparing your case reports, and ask your instructor for additional
clarification, if necessary.
Transmittal Page
The
report should begin with a transmittal memo. This memo serves to explain the
audience, author, and basic purpose of the attached report. It should be short
and to the point. For example, the transmittal memo for the Day at the Movies
case might read:
DATE:
TO:
FROM:
RE:
March 17, 2004
Mr. Plex, Owner, Royal Theater
Joe
Smith, Legal Analyst, Group One Consulting, Inc.
Analysis of Liability for Fraud
Per
your request, we have prepared an analysis of Royal Theater’s liability for
fraud as alleged by the moviegoer, Tommy. Please contact us if you need any
additional information.
The
memo should indicate an appropriate date (given the facts of the case), and
should not exceed one page.
Executive Summary
The
second page of the document should have a report title at the top, and provide
an executive summary, which is a paragraph or two that summarizes the report.
It should provide enough of an overview of the report so that an executive (who
doesn't have time to fully read the longer document) gets the main ideas and
conclusions of your report. Most importantly, the summary should contain (1)
the purpose of the report (with minimal background information), (2) what you
did (analysis) and what you found (results), and (3) your recommendations. It
should not exceed one page.
Page
3 of the report should contain a title at the top (the same title that you put
on the top of the previous page. This is the first page that should actually be
numbered, and it should be page 2 (because the memo is not technically part of
the report).
• The
report starts with an introduction section, including a statement of purpose
for the report. This paragraph should provide important background information,
and should end with a clear “road map” that tells the reader what to expect in
the remainder of the report.
• After
the introduction, use headings and subheadings frequently to ease the reader's
task. For example, possible headings for the Day at the Movies case are:
Analysis of Liability for Fraud, Analysis of Moviegoers’ Opinions, Other
Considerations, Conclusions, and Recommendations.
• A
conclusion paragraph responds to the report's purpose and how the report has
achieved it. The conclusion may contain the recommendations.
• The
length of the body of the report will be determined by necessity to convey the
analysis and conclusions, but should generally not exceed 10 pages.
• Statistical
analysis, including Excel output, should be summarized and presented at the
appropriate level, given the audience. As a general rule, most output should be
placed in an appendix, and the most important results should be discussed in
the text of the report. When a figure or table is important to the discussion,
it may be included in the text if it does not take up more than 1/3 of the
page.
• Tables
and figures should all be labeled. No tables or figures should ever cut across
a page.
• References
may be cited within the text, in footnotes, or in a separate “References”
section. Do NOT cite the Gateway text – consider that all the case information
is general knowledge – but you must provide cites to the legal library cases
when used. These citations take the form: Cao and Cao v. Nguyen and Pham,
258 Nev. 1027; 607 N.W.2d 528; 2000 Neb. LEXIS 56.
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