Page 255 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Advanced Communication Skills

Notes (f) Leave a space between first names and last name, i.e., "J. P. Doe", not "J.P.Doe".
(g) References such as John Doe, "Some paper on something", technical report – are
useless. Cite the source, date and other identifying information.
(h) For conference papers, you MUST name the conference location, month and the full
conference name, not just some abbreviation. Page numbers are nice, but optional.
All this information is readily available via the IEEE or ACM digital libraries.
(i) Check if Internet drafts have been published as RFCs or if there's a newer version.
(j) Having a citation

Jane Doe, "Some random paper", to be published, 2003 is useless, as the paper has
presumably been published by now.

15.5 Report Writing on any News

Sometimes, mangers have to write reports on an incident that happened inside/outside the
premises of the organization but is of a lot of concern for the management/higher authorities.
In such situations, the knowledge of news report writing comes handy.
The first thing to remember about writing a report on any news is that you are a manager and
not a media reporter who is writing the report to make his magazine sell like hot cakes. So your
report should be far from being propaganda.
As a writer, you will always have freedom of speech but this does not mean that you are free to
write anything that you want about those who you are writing about. The readers of your
report, whether higher authorities or colleagues or clients would be far too smart as well as
busy to put up with preachy, badly written rhetoric. If your boss asks you to present a report
about a verbal conflict/bout that took place between two valued employees of the company,
remember you have got to be as analytical and neutral as possible. The people involved in the
incident might be as important (may be even more) for the organization as you. You should take
immense care of the fact that you have to present a report and not your viewpoint.
The only thing between you and the mainstream media reporter is that you are out to tell the
truth, and they are mostly out to make money out of it. Don't waste that basic strength by
muddying the waters with excessive comment.
This said and done, with any report though, a certain amount of bias is inevitable. And even
after you might have written your report, be prepared enough to let the readers make their own
conclusions.
With this in mind, here are some basic tips for reporting technique:
Questions

As already discussed earlier for other reports, there are six questions every journalist should ask
about every news story.

Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
The most important of these is why, but find out the other things first, as it is the basis for all
further questions.

Think about the angle you want to come at it from.

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