Course Syllabus

Organizing and writing reports for business can take up a lot of valuable time and money.  They are a necessary evil used to explain and/or justify expenses, events, accidents, policy changes, as well as document numerous other activities within a company.   Reports can point out problems and offer solutions.   They can be used to explain costs or to receive an increase in budget.   In addition, when written as a proposal, they can generate new projects and income for a company by bringing in business from other sources. In short, reports are an instrument used to communicate needed information to the appropriate people within the same business or from one business to another.  

That said, not everyone is a writer. Being left with the task of creating a report can seem like a punishment akin to torture.   Staring at a blank screen or a blank piece of paper with no idea of how to start or --once you do start -- figuring out what needs to be included can be a nightmare all of its own.  

This course is designed for business professionals who are tasked with writing reports and proposals. The goal of this course is to take the difficulty out of writing these reports and then teach how to write them efficiently and effectively.  

In this course, you will learn:

• How to organize reports to make writing them easier and less time consuming.

• How to identify the important information that should be included in a report that will gain the readers' attention.

• How to present the information, as well as how to be convincing and persuasive.

• Create reports that achieve their desired goal and have the intended impact. 

This course is divided into twelve lessons to ensure that each topic is covered fully and that each student has all the information that they need to learn.  Although students are not required to write an actual report in order to successfully complete this course, students will be required to identify all aspects of a report, determine what information should go into different types of reports, and structure their own reports.  

Each lesson in this course is followed by a lesson exercise and assignment.  The lesson exercises are mandatory for all students and will determine whether or not a student has satisfactorily completed the course.  Lesson assignments are optional. These will not be graded and only given as a tool that provides for a deeper learning and understanding of the material presented.

In addition, some of the lessons contain section reviews.   Each section review contains three multiple choice questions that directly relate to a certain type of report.   These section reviews are to help you learn how to organize and write different sections on a report.   Just like the lesson exercises, these section reviews are mandatory for all students and will influence whether or not a student has satisfactorily completed the course.