Informational Reports for Non-Expert Readers: The Body

Even before you have determined how you will begin your report you must think about how you will structure its body — how you will organize it, in other words.

As noted earlier, there are no hard-and-fast organizational patterns for the the informational report for non-expert readers. And this means, of course, that there are no required sections for its body.

Instead, you must determine — based in large part upon the audience you hope to reach — what your own goals are, what your readers need to know, and the order in which they need to know it, as well as what they do not need to know.

Organizing the Body

To indicate how writers have tackled the issue of organization, let’s again consider the report on household robotics. Here is the basic organizational structure for the body:

Basic Structure for the Body of Household Robotics Report

Purpose: to explain to readers how robotic devices are becoming household objects, used to simplify everyday activities

    • General discussion of robotics
      • background/history of robot creation
      • how a robot is designed
      • how a robot works (basic information about circuitry, etc.
    • Discussion of how robots have been used in manufacturing and other fields
    • Discussion of how robots are now making the transformation from heavy manufacturing to household devices
      • Discussion of device 1
      • Discussion of device 2
      • Discussion of device 3
    • Continue until the body has finished discussions of all devices

Of course, the organization introduced here is just one of the many different patterns you can follow when producing an informational report.  But the thing to keep in mind is that simpler is better.

You don’t have to strive for a complex organizational pattern when creating the body of your report.  Instead, create for yourself a rough outline that logically breaks down the subject according to your purpose, what your readers need to know, and the order in which they need to know it.

What sorts of technical writing techniques should be applied to the body?  What sorts of basic writing techniques should be applied to it? 

Guidelines for Creating the Body of the Report

When you write the body of your report, consider the following guidelines.

Create And Follow an Outline

Sounds like freshman-level advice, right? However, an outline provides you with a basic structure or skeleton around which you can build the meat of your report (the body).  The outline can change—and it definitely doesn’t have to be as complex as those introduced in many writing handbooks.  Shoot for something simple that will help you keep a logical order or progression when you begin to write.

Keep Like Topics Together

For example, if you are going to discuss several different robotic vacuum cleaners, instead of introducing them in separate sections, you should group their discussions under a single heading, like Robotic Vacuum Cleaners, with subsections for each model. Each subsection will include its own heading specific to the type or model it discusses.  Don’t discuss one type of robotic vacuum cleaner, then introduce a robotic lawnmower, then talk about another vacuum cleaner. Get it? Keep like topics together.

Follow the Preacher’s Maxim

The separate sections of your paper must fit together smoothly, so you should plan to follow the tenets of the Preacher’s Maxim: Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. This means

      • wrapping up each section (whether a paragraph or a section proper) before you move on to the next one,
      • providing topic sentences to introduce the subjects of sections and paragraphs, and
      • including transitions that will “link” your paper’s individual components together, as in a chain.

For tips on organizational strategies like topic sentences and transitions, see the Organization Module.

Support All Assertions With Evidence

Whenever you make a claim or an assertion, you need to provide your readers with the supporting information to prove its accuracy or verify its veracity.  This is where good, solid research comes into play. See the Rhetoric & Persuasion Module.

Provide Informative And Useful Details

Details change your content from general and bland to informative and interesting.  If you say that robots can be both inside and outside the modern home, you can’t merely stop at that.  Instead, you must provide the sort of details that will help your reader better understand, visualize, truly absorb what you have just said:

Robots can be found both inside and outside the modern home. As you relax in your easy chair, in the living room, as vacuum cleaners, they pick up crumbs and dust bunnies.  As you water your flowers, in the yard, as lawn mowers, they are cutting perfectly measured lines through your grass. 

Vivid details illustrate—they bring to life your words.

Use Headings and Subheadings

Use the major separations or divisions in your outline to generate your main sections. Then within each section, do not be afraid to create subsections, each with its own heading.  Do space above and below each heading to separate it visually from the surrounding text. Remember that headings are like signposts along a highway: they help your reader find his or her way through the document. See the Organization Module, as well as the Document Design module.

Use Illustrations to Complement Text 

Visual aids —photographs, pertinent clip art, tables, graphs, charts, figures — function to complement the text, to illustrate that which you have explained in words.  They don’t replace text, though, for whenever you use a visual aid, you must discuss it. See the Rhetoric & Persuasion Module, as well as the Visual Aids Module.

Cite Your Sources

Whenever you use borrowed material — whether you quote it, paraphrase it, or summarize it — you must provide your reader with information identifying it as borrowed. Citations must go within the text, and you must also provide a Works Cited or Bibliography page.  See the chapter on documentation for guidelines.

These are some of the most basic tips you should remember as you begin working on your report for this course.  Does this very short list cover everything you should consider? No — but it does give you a solid foundation from which to begin organizing the body of your report.