Report Writing for Business Studies

Five Senses Skillbuilders No. 52

Report Writing is a skill that should be mastered by all Business Studies students. Application of the skills and techniques shown in this book should enable all students to successfully structure business reports.

In the NSW Board of Studies Business Studies course each student is expected to learn the skill of report writing. It can be applied in the Preliminary course for a structured response to the business investigation. In the HSC examination, it is used to answer questions in section III. The techniques shown could also be applied and adapted to suit the extended response (Section IV) in the HSC examination. The main thing for students to see is the visual layout, integration of business terminology, use of tables, charts, diagrams and other structural tools.

The book is organised in the following way:

• Chapter 1 introduces the main principles of report writing, the structural tools to be used, the terms encountered in typical questions, and the strategies to be adopted in answering questions.
• Chapter 2 provides instruction on how to write a business report.
• Chapters 3 to 5 present three alternative styles of business report writing ie. Conservative, Key Point and Holistic styles. The key features of each are defines and discussed. The different styles of report are then used to provide a model answer to the same typical HSC question.
• Chapter 6 contains a further 19 typical business report questions similar to those likely to be found in an HSC Business Studies exam paper.
• Chapter 7 provides model answers to the questions in Chapter 6.