WRITING YOUR GROUP REPORTS

(https://www.uvm.edu/wid/writingcenter/tutortips/buswrite.html)

Decide on a focus:

When all the research is completed, meet as a group and decide on a focus. With
every report, there needs to be a purpose, a clear "take away" for the reader. Once
all the research is done have another meeting and decide what your writing should
focus on. What is the goal of your report? To prove that the country is in good
condition to hold business? To prove that the country should be considered a good
place for investment? Or is to prove the opposite? If your research found that the
country is in a terrible economic position, then make sure everyone in your team is
aware that this will be what you are going to try and prove.

Choose one or two editors:

If you are a good writer, now is the time to tell your teammates. In place of doing
some other aspect of the project, such as preparing the power point, offer your
writing ability as a tool for your team to put the report together. The problem with
having everyone just plot their sections in the report is that everyone has a different
writing style. Having everyone's original writing may not allow for the pieces to
fall together, or for the report to flow. Having 1 or 2 people do the majority of the
revision and editing will allow for the report to have the same writing style
throughout the report, hence allowing for the sections to flow together. Sections
should be neatly organized and placed in an order that makes sense of the
progression of your research.

Write your individual sections:

You now need to start the process of putting together your report. Each team
member should write his or her own section separately. Important: Everyone in
the group needs to do some research and writing. Don't leave the research to one or
two people.
Make sure that when writing, you completely avoid "I" statements. Your writing
should be objective and formal.
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Plan the introduction and conclusion:

When everyone in the group is done writing, have a meeting to develop ideas for
the report's Introduction and Conclusion. These portions of the report should be
written as a group after each member is done with their own research and writing,
but before the whole piece is stitched together.

Each report you write should include very clear and strong intro/concluding
paragraphs. Having a purpose statement in your introduction will arouse the
reader's interest. Make sure you clearly state what it is you are researching and
why. For example, in a country analysis you may want to see if the country in
question has a good foundation for business, and whether or not companies should
move to that country. Subsequently, after proving in the body sections of your
report that this country was either good or bad for business, you NEED to make
sure you leave the reader with your answer. EX, yes, businesses should move here
because the distribution of wealth is even, and almost everyone can afford to buy
luxuries.

Stitch the sections together:

If there are two members who know that they are good writers, assign them to this
task: take everyone's section, and put them into one cohesive, professional report.
Having a clear, factual tone is appropriate for this type of writing. List the facts
out, and then make sure the relevance of these facts (or quotes) is explained in the
report.

Write the Executive Summary:

Executive summaries are the last portion of group reports that should be written.
Executive summaries should be placed right in the beginning, before your table of
contents. This should be no longer than a page in length, and should include a short
summary of each team member's sections. Try having each member of your group
come up with two or three sentences that best summarize their sections. From
there, incorporate your purpose from your introduction and findings from your
conclusion in order to capture the entire spectrum of the report. It will be important
to truly capture the most important aspects of your report, so be diligent and
concise with your work here.