Recommendation Reports

1. Recommendation Reports By Jennifer Bowie For Business Writing

2. What are Recommendation Reports? Recommendation Reports: • Answer the question “What should we choose” • Compare two or more choices • Present and interpret data • Draw conclusions • Make recommendations

3. What are the parts? Part 1 • Introduction/Overview: brief section (a paragraph or so) providing: • immediate orientation and overview of the report • the background (short summary) • main point and purpose of report • summary of the findings and recommendations

4. What are the parts? Parts 2 & 3 • Background: Provides details about what lead to the report • Requirements and Criteria: • Present and discusses the requirements or criteria you will use to evaluate your choices • Discuss the relative importance of each criterion

5. What are the parts? Parts 4 & 5 • Discussion of the Options: • Present the choices you will be evaluating • Explain how you choose these choices • Provide brief descriptions of the choices • Comparison and Evaluation: • Begin with an explanation of your methods of inquiry • Evaluate the choices by applying the criteria, you may choose to do this criterion by criterion or choice by choice (the former is recommended) • Conclude each evaluation section with either a summary of the evaluations (if doing a choice by choice comparison) or a statement of the best choice (if if doing a criterion by criterion comparison)

6. What are the parts? Parts 6 & 7 • Conclusions: Unlike other conclusion sections, this one will probably not be short • Summarizes and restates conclusions so far, starting with the individual conclusions for each evaluation • Settles any conflicts by presenting secondary conclusions, which balance out conflicting individual conclusions • Present and defend a final conclusion • Recommendations: • Echo the most important conclusions leading to the recommendation • States the final recommendations • Include the benefits of the recommendations and any drawbacks

7. The End!