Never say never ;-) Avoid "always" and "never" language. Since exaggerated language is rarely true, the whole statement is negated by the listener.TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A BUSINESS REPORTNow is the last part of our presentation: Tips on how to write a business report. Relax, dont worry. It will be short I promise. Actually you can find a lot of tips on the Internet or reference book but in my opinion, to write an effective report, there are five things to consider:- Audience and purpose- KISS principle- Facts- Language and voice- FormatLets start with the first oneAudience and purposeBefore sitting down to write the report, you need to ask yourself two questions:1. Whois the audience? Who will read the report? (manager, shareholders, clients, lawyers, professors, consultant, )2. Whatis the purpose? This is what your readers need to know to do their job?E.g. You are working in an Administrative Department of a Drug Company. It has many branches all over the country. However 4 of them in HCM area are no longer making profit and covering the costs. There are two possible solutions for this; closing the least profitable branch or merging 4 into one. You are asked to write a report to the senior manager to make these two recommendations. In this case, whos the audience? the general manager, administrators or the medical department will read the report. If you write a report to a general manager and its full of the information about medication, I mean which medicine is suitable for which patients; can the general manager understand them all? Or if you write a report to a medical professors and incude a lot of financial statement, numbers analysis, can he or she understand them all? Its just like asking the fish to climb the tree and the monkey to swim in the sea. So information, explanations and language should be familiar with specific readers. How about the purpose? Give the facts and backgrounds of each branch, the profit and loss data so the manager can decide whether to close or to merge. K.I.S.S. principle, sounds interesting, right? I will tell you what it means later. Now lets have a look at this table. We have because the fact that is there any other way to say this with the same meaning?...which ones is shorter? Simpler? Which ones should you use? So KISS principle means keep it simple and short. It is important to keep in mind that a business report is not written in an essay format. If its possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (E.g. use to instead of for the purpose of; because of instead of due to the fact that; now instead of at this point in time) And never use long word where a short one will do. (E.g. use is better than utilize and change is better than modification). Avoid repetition (E.g. combine, not combine together; my opinion not my personal opinion) Facts: You are not writing a novel, you are writing a report so what you feel or the others feel doesnt matter but the facts do. Give specific details to illustrate the point you are making. (e.g. shouldnt write The package will be delivered soon but write The package will be delivered in two-week time. Shouldnt write The program earned higher interest but write The program earned 10% interest.Use simple tenses (usually the present simple) to express facts.Language and voice: Use language that is believable (e.g. usually instead of always, rarely instead of never; most instead of everyone; a few/some instead of no-one/nobody). When necessary use active voice to let the readers know who perform the action to emphasize their responsibility (e.g. You should write The marketing department completed the survey rather than The survey was completed by the marketing department) FormatUsing italics for the Summary or bold letters for headings for example, to make the sections look distinctive. But remember Too much of anything is bad. Too much emphasis on appearance and not enough on content.