11 Analytical Report: Writing from Facts

Introduction

The writing genre for this chapter is the analytical report. 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.

11.1 Information and Critical Thinking

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Distinguish between fact and opinion.
• Recognize bias in reading and in yourself.
• Ask critical thinking questions to explore an idea for a report.

Knowledge in the social and natural sciences and technical fields is often focused on data and ideas that can be verified by observing, measuring, and testing. Accordingly, writers in these fields place high value on neutral and objective case analysis and inferences based on the careful examination of data. Put another way, writers describe and analyze results as they understand them. Likewise, writers in these fields avoid subjectivity, including personal opinions, speculations, and bias. As the writer of an analytical report, you need to know the difference between fact and opinion, be able to identify bias, and think critically and analytically.

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion

An analytical report provides information based on facts. Put simply, facts are statements that can be proven or whose truth can be inferred.

It may be difficult to distinguish fact from opinion or allegation. As a writer, use a critical eye to examine what you read. The following are examples of factual statements:

• Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the legislative branch of the government consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
• The school board voted to approve the administration’s proposal.
• Facts that use numbers are called statistics. Some numbers are stated directly:
• The earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in March 2020 was 2.09 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average surface temperature during the 20th century.
• The total number of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election was approximately 159 million.
• The survey results showed that 45 percent of first-year students at this university attended every class, whether in person or online.

Other numbers are implied:

• Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.
• College tuition and fees have risen in the past decade.

Factual statements such as those above stand in contrast to opinions, which are statements of belief or value. Opinions form the basis of claims that are supported by evidence in argumentative writing, but they should be avoided in informative and analytical writing. Here are two statements of opinion about an increase in college tuition and fees:

Although tuition and fees have risen, the value of a college education is worth the cost.

The increase in college tuition and fees over the past 10 years has placed an unreasonably heavy financial burden on students.

Both statements indicate that the writer will make an argument. In the first, the writer will defend the increases in college tuition and fees. In the second, the writer will argue that the increases in tuition and fees have made college too expensive. In both arguments, the writer will support the argument with factual evidence.

Want to know more about facts? Read the blog post Fact-Checking 101 by Laura McClure, posted to the TED-Ed website.

Recognizing Bias

In addition to distinguishing between fact and opinion, it is important to recognize bias. Bias is commonly defined as a preconceived opinion about something—a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people. As the writer of a report, you will learn to recognize bias in yourself and in the information you gather.

Bias in What You Read

Some writing is intentionally biased and intended to persuade, such as the editorials and opinion pieces described above. However, a report and the evidence on which it is based should not be heavily biased. Bias becomes a problem when a source you believe to be neutral, objective, and trustworthy presents information that attempts to sway your opinion. Identifying Bias, posted by Tyler Rablin, is a helpful guide to recognizing bias.

As you consider sources for your report, the following tips can also help you spot bias and read critically:

Determine the writer’s purpose. Is the writer simply informing you or trying to persuade you?

Research the author. Is the writer known for taking a side on the topic of the writing? Is the writer considered an expert?

Distinguish between fact and opinion. Take note of the number of facts and opinions throughout the source.

Pay attention to the language and what the writer emphasizes. Does the author use emotionally loaded, inflammatory words or descriptions intended to sway readers? What do the title, introduction, and any headings tell you about the author’s approach to the subject?

Read multiple sources on the topic. Learn whether the source is leaving out or glossing over important information and credible views.

Look critically at the images and any media that support the writing. Do they reinforce positive or negative aspects of the subject?

Bias in Yourself

Most individuals bring what psychologists call cognitive bias to their interactions with information or with other people. Cognitive bias influences the way people gather and process new information. As you research information for a report, also be aware of confirmation bias. This is the tendency to seek out and accept information that supports (or confirms) a belief you already have and may cause you to ignore or dismiss information that challenges that belief. A related bias is the false consensus effect, which is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people agree with your beliefs.

For example, perhaps you believe strongly that college tuition is too high and that tuition should be free at the public colleges and universities in your state. With that belief, you are likely to be more receptive to facts and statistics showing that tuition-free college benefits students by boosting graduation rates and improving financial security after college, in part because the sources may seem more mainstream. However, if you believe strongly that tuition should not be free, you are likely to be more receptive to facts and statistics showing that students who don’t pay for college are less likely to be serious about school and take longer to graduate—again, because the sources may seem more mainstream.

Asking Critical Questions about a Topic for a Report

As you consider a topic for a report, note the ideas that occur to you, interesting information you read, and what you already know. Answer the following questions about potential topics to help you understand a topic in a suitably analytical framework for a report.

• What is/was the cause of ________?
• What is/was the effect of ________?
• How does/did ________ compare or contrast with another similar event, idea, or item?
• What makes/made ________ a problem?
• What are/were some possible solutions to ________?
• What beliefs do I have about ________?
• What aspects of ________ do I need to learn more about to write a report about it?

In the report that appears later in this chapter, student Trevor Garcia analyzes the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Trevor began thinking about his topic with the question What was the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Because he had lived through 2020, he was able to draw upon personal experience: his school closed, his mother was laid off, and his family’s finances were tight. As he researched his question, he moved beyond the information he gathered from his own experiences and discovered that the United States had failed in several key areas. He then answered the questions below to arrive at an analytical framework:

• What was the cause of the poor U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?
• What was the effect of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?
• How did the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic compare/contrast with the responses of other countries?
• What are some possible solutions to the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What do I already believe about the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What aspects of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic do I need to learn more about?

For his report, Trevor chose to focus on the first question: What was the cause of the poor U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?

11.3 Glance at Genre: Informal and Formal Analytical Reports

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Determine purpose and audience expectations for an analytical report.
• Identify key features of informal and formal reports.
• Define key terms and characteristics of an analytical report.

It is important to understand the purpose of your report, the expectations of the audience, any specific formatting requirements, and the types of evidence you can use.

Defining a Specific Purpose

Your purpose is your reason for writing. The purpose of a report is to inform; as the writer, you are tasked with providing information and explaining it to readers. Many topics are suitable for informative writing—how to find a job, the way a disease spreads within a population, or the items on which people spend the most money. Some textbooks are examples of informative writing, as is much of the reporting you find on reputable news sites.

An analytical report is a type of report. Its purpose is to present and analyze information. An assignment for an analytical report will likely include words such as analyze, compare, contrast, cause, and/or discuss, indicating the specific purpose of the report. Here are a few examples:

• Discuss and analyze potential career paths with strong employment prospects for young adults.
• Compare and contrast proposals to reduce binge drinking among college students.
• Analyze the Cause-and-effect of injuries on construction sites and the effects of efforts to reduce workplace injuries.
• Discuss the Effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on voting patterns among U.S. citizens of color.
• Analyze the success and failure of strategies used by the major political parties to encourage citizens to vote.

Tuning In to Audience Expectations

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.

Informal Reports

An informal analytical report will identify a problem, provide factual information about the problem, and draw conclusions about the information. An informal report is usually structured like an essay, with an introduction or summary, body paragraphs, and a conclusion or recommendations. It will likely feature headings identifying key sections and be presented in academic essay format, such as APA Documentation and Format. For an example of an informal analytical report documented in APA style, see Trevor Garcia’s paper on the U.S. response to COVID-19 in 2020 in the Annotated Student Sample.

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

Writers in the social sciences, the natural sciences, technical fields, and business often write formal analytical reports. These include lab reports, research reports, and proposals.

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, used in the examples in this chapter, 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.

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 findings of the report. 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 that are related to the report or contain information that can be culled but are not deemed central to understanding the report.

The following links take you to sample formal reports written by students and offer tips from librarians posted by colleges and universities in the United States. These samples may help you better understand what is involved in writing a formal analytical report.

Product review report, from the University/College Library of Broward College and Florida Atlantic University

Business report, from Wright State University

Technical report, from the University of Utah

Lab report, from Hamilton College

Field report, from the University of Southern California

Exploring the Genre

The following are key terms and characteristics related to reports.

Audience: Readers of a report or any piece of writing.

Bias: A preconceived opinion about something, such as a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people. As a reader, be attentive to potential bias in sources; as a writer, be attentive to your own biases.

Body: The main part of a report between the introduction and the conclusion. The body of an analytical report consists of paragraphs in which the writer presents and analyzes key information.

Citation of sources: References in the written text to sources that a writer has used in a report.

Conclusion and/or recommendation: The last part of a report. In this section, the writer summarizes the significance of the information in the report or offers recommendations—or both.

Critical thinking: The ability to look beneath the surface of words and images to analyze, interpret, and evaluate them.

Ethos: The sense that the writer or other authority is trustworthy and credible; also known as ethical appeal.

Evidence: Statements of fact, statistics, examples, and expert opinions that support the writer’s points.

Facts: Statements whose truth can be proved or verified and that serve as evidence in a report.

Introduction: The first section of a report after any front matter, such as an abstract or table of contents. In an analytical report, the writer introduces the topic to be addressed and often presents the thesis at the end of the introduction.

Logos: The use of facts as evidence to appeal to an audience’s logical and rational thinking; also known as logical appeal.

Objective stance: Writing in a way that is free from bias, personal feelings, and emotional language. An objective stance is especially important in report writing.

Purpose: The reason for writing. The purpose of an analytical report is to examine a subject or issue closely, often from multiple perspectives, by looking at causes and effects, by comparing and contrasting, or by examining problems and proposing solutions.

Statistics: Factual statements that include numbers and often serve as evidence in a report.

Synthesis: Making connections among and combining ideas, facts, statistics, and other information.

Thesis: The central or main idea that you will convey in your report. The thesis is often referred to as the central claim in argumentative writing.

Thesis statement: A declarative sentence (sometimes two) that states the topic, the angle you are taking, and the aspects of the topic you will cover. For a report, a thesis indicates and limits the scope of the report.