Overview

Long documents must be easily accessible to all your intended readers—those who have the time and inclination to read the whole thing, and those who want only to know the bullets. Any tools you can provide to help readers know what's in the report without actually reading it line by line will be highly valued. You'll want to use the front matter—title page, table of contents, list of tables and figures—to highlight the overall topic and major sections of the report. And you may want to provide an abstract or executive summary to pull out the central argument you are presenting. Abstracts need to stand alone—that is, anyone who reads only the abstract should have a clear sense of your message and the arguments that support that message. You'll also want to include a conclusion and, most important, an overview of any recommendations you are making in the report.

For complicated material, you may also want to provide some tools at the end of the report like a glossary of technical terms, an appendix of photos or diagrams, or the details of your experiment, or the questionnaire you used in your research.

Perhaps most important is that your sources are appropriately documented in a reference list or works cited page.