Analytical Reports
The broad purpose of an analytical report is to inform and analyze—that is, to teach your readers (your audience) about a subject by providing information based on facts supported by evidence and then drawing conclusions about the significance of the information you provide. As an academic and professional genre, reports are necessarily objective, which can make for dry reading. Consider the writing identity that you have been developing throughout this course as you tackle this genre. In what ways can you give your report voice? In what ways can you acknowledge or challenge the conventions of the genre?
You have likely written or presented a report at some point in your life as a student; perhaps you wrote a lab report on a science experiment, presented research you conducted, or analyzed a book you read. While some reports seek to inform readers about a topic, an analytical report examines a subject or an issue by considering its causes and effects, by comparing and contrasting, or by discussing a problem and proposing one or more solutions.
Two Types of Analytical Reports
Informal Reports
Other types of informal reports include journalism reports. A traditional journalism report involves a reporter for a news organization reporting on the day’s events—the results of an election, a political crisis, a plane crash, a celebrity marriage—on TV, on radio, or in print. An investigative journalism report, on the other hand, involves reporters doing original research over a period of weeks or months to uncover significant new information, similar to what Barbara Ehrenreich did for her book Nickel and Dimed. For sample traditional and investigative journalistic reports, visit the website of a reliable news organization or publication, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, the New Yorker, or the Atlantic.
Formal Reports
Formal reports present findings and data drawn from experiments, surveys, and research and often end with a conclusion based on an analysis of these findings and data. These reports frequently include visuals such as graphs, bar charts, pie charts, photographs, or diagrams that are captioned and referred to in the text. Formal reports always cite sources of information, often using APA Documentation and Format, or a similar style.
If you are assigned a formal report in a class, follow the instructions carefully. Your instructor will likely explain the assignment in detail and provide explicit directions and guidelines for the research you will need to do (including any permission required by your college or university if you conduct research on human subjects), how to organize the information you gather, and how to write and format your report. A formal report is a complex, highly organized, and often lengthy document with a specified format and sections usually marked by headings.
The following are the components of a formal analytical report. Depending on the assignment and the audience, a formal report you write may include some or all of these parts. For example, a research report following APA format usually includes a title page, an abstract, headings for components of the body of the report (methods, results, discussion), and a references page. Detailed APA guidelines are available online, including at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
Components of Formal Analytical Reports
- Letter of transmittal. When a report is submitted, it is usually accompanied by a letter or email to the recipient explaining the nature of the report and signed by those responsible for writing it. Write the letter of transmittal when the report is finished and ready for submission.
- Title page. The title page includes the title of the report, the name(s) of the author(s), and the date it was written or submitted. The report title should describe the report simply, directly, and clearly and should not try to be too clever. For example, The New Student Writing Project: A Two-Year Report is a clear, descriptive title, whereas Write On, Students! is not.
- Acknowledgments. If other people and/or organizations contributed to the report, include a page or paragraph thanking them.
- Table of contents. For long reports (10 pages or more), create a table of contents to help readers navigate easily. List the major components and subsections of the report and the pages on which they begin.
- Executive summary or abstract. The executive summary or abstract is a paragraph that highlights the report’s findings. The purpose of this section is to present information in the quickest, most concentrated, and most economical way possible to be useful to readers. Write this section after you have completed the rest of the report.
- Introduction or background. The introduction provides necessary background information to help readers understand the report. This section also indicates what information is included in the report.
- Methods. Especially in the social sciences, the natural sciences, and technical disciplines, the methods or procedures section outlines how you gathered information and from what sources, such as experiments, surveys, library research, interviews, and so on.
- Results. In the results section, you summarize the data you have collected from your research, explain your method of analysis, and present this information in detail, often in a table, graph, or chart.
- Discussion or Conclusion. In this section, you interpret the results and present the conclusions of your research. This section also may be called “Discussion of Findings.”
- Recommendations. In this section, you explain what you believe should be done in response to your research findings.
- References and bibliography. The references section includes every source you cited in the report. The bibliography contains, in addition to those cited in the report, sources that readers can consult to learn more.
- Appendix. An appendix (plural: appendices) includes documents related to the report or containing information that can be culled but is not deemed central to understanding the report.
Generating Ideas
Coming up with a topic for a report can be daunting because you can report on nearly anything. The topic can easily get too broad, trapping you in the realm of generalizations. The trick is to find a topic that interests you and focus on an angle you can analyze in order to say something significant about it. The topic can be contemporary or historical, but it must be one that you can analyze and support with evidence from sources.
The following questions can help you think about a topic suitable for analysis:
Report Questions
Why or how did ________ happen?
What are the results or effects of ________?
Is ________ a problem? If so, why?
What are examples of ________ or reasons for ________?
How does ________ compare to or contrast with other issues, concerns, or things?
Another Lens. To gain another analytic view on the topic of your report, consider different people affected by it. Say, for example, that you have decided to report on recent high school graduates and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the final months of their senior year. If you are a recent high school graduate, you might naturally gravitate toward writing about yourself and your peers. But you might also consider the adults in the lives of recent high school graduates—for example, teachers, parents, or grandparents—and how they view the same period. Or you might consider the same topic from the perspective of a college admissions department looking at their incoming freshman class.
Asking the Journalist’s Questions
One way to generate ideas about a topic is to ask the five W (and one H) questions, also called the journalist’s questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Try answering the following questions to explore a topic:
Journalist’s Questions
Who was or is involved in ________?
What happened/is happening with ________? What were/are the results of ________?
When did ________ happen? Is ________ happening now?
Where did ________ happen, or where is ________ happening?
Why did ________ happen, or why is ________ happening now?
How did ________ happen?
For example, imagine that you have decided to write your analytical report on the effect of the COVID-19 shutdown on high-school students by interviewing students on your college campus. Your questions and answers might look something like those below.
Questions and Answers for Topic Exploration
Who was involved in the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown?
Nearly every student of my generation was sent home to learn in 2020. My school was one of the first in the United States to close. We were in school one day, and then we were all sent home, wondering when we would go back.
What happened during the shutdown? / What were/are the results of the shutdown?
Schools closed in March 2020. Students started online learning. Not all of them had computers. Teachers had to figure out how to teach online. All activities were canceled—sports, music, theater, prom, graduation celebrations—pretty much everything. Social life went online. Life as we knew it changed and still hasn’t returned to normal.
When did the shutdown happen? Is it happening now?
Everything was canceled from March through the end of the school year. Although many colleges have in-person classes, many of us are doing most of our classes online, even if we are living on campus. This learning situation hasn’t been easy. I need to decide whether I want to focus on then or now.
Where did the shutdown happen, or where is it still happening?
Schools were closed all over the United States and all over the world. Some schools are still closed.
Why did the shutdown happen, or why is it happening now?
Schools closed because the virus was highly contagious, and no one knew much about how many people would get sick from it or how sick they would get. Many schools were still closed for much of the 2020–21 school year.
How was the shutdown implemented? How is it still in effect?
Governors of many states, including mine, issued orders for schools to close. Now colleges are making their own plans.
Narrowing and Focusing
Another way to find a topic is to ask focused questions about it. For example, you might ask the following questions about the effect of the 2020 pandemic shutdown on recent high school graduates:
How did the shutdown change students’ feelings about their senior year?
How did the shutdown affect their decisions about post-graduation plans, such as work or going to college?
How did the shutdown affect their academic performance in high school or in college?
How did/do they feel about continuing their education?
How did the shutdown affect their social relationships?
Any of these questions might be developed into a thesis for an analytical report. Below are more examples of broad topics and focusing questions.
Broad Topics and Focusing Questions
Broad Topic: Sports, such as college athletes and academic performance.
- How does participating in a sport affect the academic performance of college athletes?
- Does participation help or hurt students’ grades?
- Does participation improve athletes’ study habits?
Broad Topic: Culture and society, such as cancel culture.
- Who is affected by cancel culture?
- Who is canceled, and who is empowered?
- How do the lives of people who are canceled change?
- How do the lives of people who are canceling others change?
- How does cancel culture affect community attitudes and actions?
Broad Topic: History and historical events, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- How did voting patterns change after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
- How has the law been challenged?
- How have voting patterns changed in the years since the law was challenged?
Broad Topic: Health and the environment, such as a plant-based diet.
- What are the known health benefits of a plant-based diet?
- What are the effects of a plant-based diet on the environment?
- How much money can a person save (or not save) by adopting a plant-based diet, such as vegetarianism or veganism?
Broad Topic: Entertainment and the arts, such as TV talent shows.
- How do TV talent shows affect the careers of their contestants?
- How many of the contestants continue to develop their talent?
- How many continue to perform several years after their appearance on a show?
Technologies and objects, such as smartphones.
- Do people depend on smartphones more than they did a year ago? Five years ago?
- What has changed about people’s relationships with their phones?
Audience
The audience for your report consists of the people who will read it or who could read it. Are you writing for your instructor? For your classmates? For other students and teachers in professional fields or academic disciplines? For people in your community? Whoever your readers are, they expect you to do the following:
- Have an idea of what they already know about your topic, and adjust your writing as needed. If readers are new to the topic, they expect you to provide necessary background information. If they are knowledgeable about the topic, they will expect you to cover the background quickly.
- Provide reliable information in the form of specific facts, statistics, and examples. Whether you present your own research or information from other sources, readers expect you to have done your homework in order to supply trustworthy information.
- Define terms, especially if audience members may be unfamiliar with your topic.
- Structure your report in a logical way. It should open with an introduction that tells readers the subject and should follow a logical structure.
- Adopt an objective stance and neutral tone, free of any bias, personal feelings, or emotional language. By demonstrating objectivity, you show respect for your readers’ knowledge and intelligence, and you build credibility and trust, or ethos, with them.
- Present and cite source information fairly and accurately.
Gathering Information
Because they are based on information and evidence, most analytical reports require you to do at least some research. Depending on your assignment, you may be able to find reliable information online, or you may need to do primary research by conducting an experiment, a survey, or interviews. For example, if you live among students in their late teens and early twenties, consider what they can tell you about their lives that you might be able to analyze. Returning to or graduating from high school, starting college, or returning to college in the midst of a global pandemic has provided them, for better or worse, with educational and social experiences that are shared widely by people their age and very different from the experiences older adults had at the same age.
Some report assignments will require you to do formal research, an activity that involves finding sources and evaluating them for reliability, reading them carefully, taking notes, and citing all words you quote and ideas you borrow.
Whether you conduct in-depth research or not, keep track of the ideas that come to you and the information you learn. You can write or dictate notes using an app on your phone or computer, or you can jot notes in a journal if you prefer pen and paper. Then, when you are ready to begin organizing your report, you will have a record of your thoughts and information. Always track the sources of information you gather, whether from printed or digital material or from a person you interviewed, so that you can return to the sources if you need more information. And always credit the sources in your report.
Types of Evidence
Depending on your assignment and the topic of your report, certain types of evidence may be more effective than others. Other types of evidence may even be required. As a general rule, choose evidence that is rooted in verifiable facts and experience. In addition, select the evidence that best supports the topic and your approach to the topic, be sure the evidence meets your instructor’s requirements, and cite any evidence you use that comes from a source. The following list contains different types of frequently used evidence and an example of each.
- Definition: An explanation of a key word, idea, or concept.
- Example: An illustration of an idea or concept.
- Expert opinion: A statement by a professional in the field whose opinion is respected.
- Fact: Information that can be proven correct or accurate.
- Interview: An in-person, phone, or remote conversation that involves an interviewer posing questions to another person or people.
- Quotation: The exact words of an author or a speaker.
- Statistics: A numerical fact or item of data.
- Survey: A structured interview in which respondents (the people who answer the survey questions) are all asked the same questions, either in person or through print or electronic means, and their answers tabulated and interpreted. Surveys discover attitudes, beliefs, or habits of the general public or segments of the population.
- Visuals: Graphs, figures, tables, photographs and other images, diagrams, charts, maps, videos, and audio recordings, among others.
Writing Your Report
Drafting a Thesis
The thesis is the central idea that you will explore and support in your report; all paragraphs in your report should relate to it. In an essay-style analytical report, you will likely express this main idea in a thesis statement of one or two sentences toward the end of the introduction.
For example, if you found that the academic performance of student athletes was higher than that of non-athletes, you might write the following thesis statement:
The thesis statement often previews the organization of your writing. For example, in his report on the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Trevor Garcia wrote the following thesis statement, which detailed the central idea of his report:
After you draft a thesis statement, ask these questions, and examine your thesis as you answer them. Revise your draft as needed.
Is it interesting? A thesis for a report should answer a question that is worth asking and piques curiosity.
Is it precise and specific? If you are interested in reducing pollution in a nearby lake, explain how to stop the zebra mussel infestation or reduce the frequent algae blooms.
Is it manageable? Try to split the difference between having too much information and not having enough.
Organizing Your Ideas
As a next step, organize the points you want to make in your report and the evidence to support them. Use an outline, a diagram, or another organizational tool, such as the chart below.
Example Report Organization
Introduction (usually one paragraph, but can be two)
- Draw readers in with an overview; an anecdote; a question (open-ended, not yes-or-no); a description of an event, scene, or situation; or a quotation.
- Provide necessary background here or in the first paragraph of the body, defining terms as needed.
- State the tentative thesis.
First Main Point
- Give the first main point related to the thesis.
- Develop the point in paragraphs supported by evidence.
Second Main Point
- Give the second main point related to the thesis.
- Develop the point in paragraphs supported by evidence.
Additional Main Points
- Give the third and additional main point(s) related to the thesis.
- Develop the points in paragraphs supported by evidence.
Conclusion
- Conclude with a summary of the main points, a recommended course of action, and/or a review of the introduction and restatement of the thesis.
Introduction
Some students write the introduction first; others save it for last. Whenever you choose to write the introduction, use it to draw readers into your report. Make the topic of your report clear, and be concise and sincere. End the introduction with your thesis statement. Depending on your topic and the type of report, you can write an effective introduction in several ways. Opening a report with an overview is a tried-and-true strategy, as shown in the following example on the U.S. response to COVID-19 by Trevor Garcia. Notice how he opens the introduction with statistics and a comparison and follows it with a question that leads to the thesis statement (underlined).
For a less formal report, you might want to open with a question, quotation, or brief story. The following example opens with an anecdote that leads to the thesis statement (underlined).
Body Paragraphs: Point, Evidence, Analysis
Use the body paragraphs of your report to present evidence that supports your thesis. A reliable pattern to keep in mind for developing the body paragraphs of a report is point, evidence, and analysis:
- The point is the central idea of the paragraph, usually given in a topic sentence stated in your own words at or toward the beginning of the paragraph. Each topic sentence should relate to the thesis.
- The evidence you provide develops the paragraph and supports the point made in the topic sentence. Include details, examples, quotations, paraphrases, and summaries from sources if you conducted formal research. Synthesize the evidence you include by showing in your sentences the connections between sources.
- The analysis comes at the end of the paragraph. In your own words, draw a conclusion about the evidence you have provided and how it relates to the topic sentence.
The paragraph below illustrates the point, evidence, and analysis pattern. Drawn from a report about concussions among football players, the paragraph opens with a topic sentence about the NCAA and NFL and their responses to studies about concussions. The paragraph is developed with evidence from three sources. It concludes with a statement about helmets and players’ safety.
Developing Paragraph Content
In the body paragraphs of your report, you will likely use examples, draw comparisons, show contrasts, or analyze causes and effects to develop your topic.
Example: Paragraphs developed with example are common in reports. The paragraph below, adapted from a report by student John Zwick on the mental health of soldiers deployed during wartime, draws examples from three sources.
Cause and Effect: When you analyze causes and effects, you explain the reasons that certain things happened and/or their results. The report by Trevor Garcia on the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an example: his report examines the reasons the United States failed to control the coronavirus. The paragraph below, adapted from another student’s report written for an environmental policy course, explains the effect of white settlers’ views of forest management on New England.
Compare and Contrast: Compare and contrast paragraphs are useful when you wish to examine similarities and differences. You can use both comparison and contrast in a single paragraph, or you can use one or the other. The paragraph below, adapted from a student report on the rise of populist politicians, compares the rhetorical styles of populist politicians Huey Long and Donald Trump.
Conclusion
The conclusion should draw the threads of your report together and make its significance clear to readers. You may wish to review the introduction, restate the thesis, recommend a course of action, point to the future, or use some combination of these. Whichever way you approach it, the conclusion should not head in a new direction. The following example is the conclusion from a student’s report on the effect of a book about environmental movements in the United States.
References
You must cite the sources of information and data included in your report. Citations must appear in both the text and a bibliography at the end of the report.
The sample paragraphs in the previous section include examples of in-text citation using APA documentation style. Your instructor may require another documentation style, such as MLA or Chicago.
LICENSE AND ATTRIBUTIONS
Adapted from “8 Analytical Report: Writing from Facts from Writing Guide with Handbook by Openstax and is used under a CC BY 4.0 license.