Sunday, May 2, 2010

short and long reports

Other than the obvious size difference, there are many differences between short and long reports. In my eyes, short reports are a bit easier to understand. Short report are usually focusing on one important topic and there are not many guidelines that need to be followed. Long reports on the the other hand have a lot more to them. The main problem with long reports is the face that you want to deal our a lot of information without losing the attention of the reader. This information also should be presented so it is understandable. My interests in long reports is the formatting, font and presentation. The formatting need to show the important information without showing emphasis on the small stuff. You can do this by having several headers and breaking the information up into categories. The font you choose to use should be very standard. When dealing with report as long as 8-20 pages, the font can make the difference between readers finishing or having the put it down because their eyes hurt. Documents like this are naturally boring so presentation is important. You want to draw the reader in by making them feel as they are learning a great deal of information. A website i thought would be great to refer to in conjunction with mine would behttp://www.latech.edu/tech/courses/english303/researchanddocumentreport.htm. This really focuses on data,drafting and revising the report.