Report Writing [antikvár]

Any textbook entering a fourth edition has one basic problem. What, if anything, of the original conception of the book remains pertinent to our day? And, on the other hand, what is so out-of-date that it must be discarded and forgotten? Preface In revising, we were surprised to find that much of the original preface is still applicable today. We repeat some of it: Nowadays reports play a large part in public and corporate affairs. An increasing number of men and women must know how to write them. When no standard form is available, it is often difficult to develop a logical arrangement for a report and to present clearly and emphatically the facts and ideas which it must contain. This book, which applies certain principles of composition and rhetoric to the special field of the report, is intended to be helpful to those writers who are either inexperienced or less effective than they would like to be. The report writer must meet several requirements. He must be "audience-minded"; that is, he must write with an appreciation of his reader's point of view. He must be clear and accurate. He must have the ability to determine what to include and how to arrange it. In this book the authors have tried to hold in mind these common demands and to point out reasonable and effective methods of meeting them. The materials of the text are so arranged that the student may advance progressively from the simple problems to the more complex. The business letter is chosen as the proper approach, both because it demands somewhat less skill in organization than many longer forms and because its relationship to all report writing is so close. The student's practice begins with the writing of letters and short compositions, in which he can find interest because of their obvious relationship to the practical reports of business and industry. With this foundation laid, he is prepared to attack the more complicated problems. Certainly the number of reports and report writers has increased fantastically since 1929, but what may have seemed new then seems only too obvious today. That the principles laid down in the first edition have been found pragmatic is evidenced by the continuous adoption of Report Writing in classrooms, in government, and in industry, here and abroad. (It is noteworthy, too, that the Third Edition was recently reproduced in