WRITING A REPORT

A report is usually written for a superior (e.g. a teacher) or a peer group (e.g.
members of an English club). Candidates are expected to give some factual
information and make suggestions or recommendations. A report should be
clearly organised and may include headings.

With all the different writing tasks in the FCE exam you have to check
two things when you read the information given:
1. What do you have to include in your report?
2. Who is going to read it?

So, what do you have to include? 

In almost every writing task in the FCE exam you will find that there
are three main points.

Making a suggestion/recommendation is the one piece of content

that we can see in every single report because, after all, reports are
usually written to make a suggestion.

How to organise your report

Example task:
Last year a new sports and leisure centre opened in your home town. You
have recently received the following letter from the manager of the centre:

I am writing to all members of the Active Leisure Club to thank you for
your custom over the last year. We want to make the facilities even
better this year! Please send a short report to us, telling us what you
think are the best and the worst aspects of the club. We also want to
hear your suggestions for new facilities…

Write your report to the manager (use between 140 and 190 words).

If you remember, there are three main points we have to include in our
report:
1. The good aspects of the club
2. The bad aspects of the club
3. Your suggestions for new facilities

It probably makes sense to give each of these main topic points an extra
paragraph so we’ve already got three. Let’s add a title and an introduction
to this so we get to four main sections, which work in almost every
single report:
 1. Title and introduction
2. First topic point (The good aspects of the club)
3. Second topic point (The bad aspects of the club)
4. Your suggestions/recommendations (Your suggestions for new
facilities)
In a report we also give each section a heading so your text will look
like my post here clearly separated in different parts so it becomes easier
for the reader to find a specific piece of information.

Plan before you start writing

Please, always make a plan before you start writing. Just make a list
with the different paragraphs and add just a few notes to each
section. This way, you know the structure of your text, and what you want
to include.

Introduction
A report is always based on facts (even though you will normally have to
invent those ‘facts’) so it is not so much about making it sensational, but to
be very clear and to the point. In your introduction, therefore, you
should clearly state why you are writing the report and what is going
to be included. Also, try not to repeat the words as you find them in
the task, but instead paraphrase and use your own words. You can
also say where you got the information from, but this point is optional.

Useful phrases to start your report with include:

1. The purpose/aim of this report is to …
2. The report is intended to show/discuss/suggest/outline …
3. In this report I will …

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to outline the best and worst parts of our club,
which I gathered speaking to other members, as well as to recommend
improvements to the facilities.

Topic paragraphs

The topic paragraphs are where you give most of the information of your
report. Again, it shouldn’t sound like a great story, but be factual and clear.
In the example we have to describe the best and worst aspects of the
leisure club. From this information we will later make our
recommendations so we want to tie everything together nicely.
Of course, there are always things to be careful with:
1. Only write about things related to the task.
2. Support your points with reasons and examples.
3. Don’t write from your personal perspective, but rather from the
group’s point of view.
4. Use some language to generalise your arguments:
o In general, …
o Generally speaking, …
o Most (members) seem to …
o It appears that …
o According to …
o Passive voice (be + past participle)

The best aspects of the club

Most members seem to enjoy the swimming pool with it’s daily water
exercise classes and the opportunity to swim in 50-metre lanes. It also
appears that offering a child care programme is appreciated by the
majority of our members since many of them have families, but still would
like to use the facilities of the club.

The worst aspects of the club

According to most of the members I have spoken to, the café does not
meet their expectations with below-average food and slow service.
Another problem is the state of the gymnasium which, in general, is
avoided by many because of broken equipment and a lack of staff during
peak times.
There you have it. I included formal language and expressions to
generalise as well as some passive structures (is appreciated, is avoided),
which helps to make the report sound more formal and also moves it away
from my personal perspective. I focused only on the task and expanded a
little bit on each point that I made.

Your suggestion/recommendation
Last but not least, we need to finish off our report with our suggestions to
improve the clubs facilities. You should always base your
recommendations on the things you wrote in the previous
paragraphs to make sure that your report as a whole makes sense.
You can do this by using some specific language:
1. Based on the findings of this report I recommend/suggest +ing
2. I (would) recommend/suggest that …
3. The following (improvements) are recommended: …
4. The best ideas/solutions seem to be …
5. It would be (highly) advisable to …
6. If it is decided to follow my recommendations, …

Suggestions to improve the club’s facilities

Based on the findings of this report the best solutions seem to be to

improve the quality of the menu and the service at the café as well as the
maintenance schedule and number of staff at the gymnasium. If it is
decided to follow my recommendations, I am sure that the experience for
our members can be improved even more.