Reference no: EM132489334 , Length: 10 pages

Imagine you are leading an ad hoc committee formed at the Lethbridge College for the purpose of investigating a problem and offering at least three solutions for solving that problem. Problems may include, but are not limited to:
• Stress levels of post-secondary students
• A shortage of student parking at the Lethbridge College
• Cost of paper textbooks
You will need to identify the problem you are focusing on solving. What problem are you focusing on? What is the issue? Consider the scope and limitations of this problem. What will be investigated? Is the project feasible? Are there limitations? Also, make sure you can describe the significance of solving this specific problem. Why is the topic worth investigating at this time? What happens if the topic is not as important as you thought at first? You will submit an 8-10 page business report. The business report in your textbook on pages 467-482 is an excellent resource, and illustrates what an 8-10 page business report should contain. You will also find that some of these pages will include content such as a title page, table of contents, and references page! Your business report must include at least one chart, table, or image!

Your first meeting will be in-class, which will give you a chance to discuss personal expectations and communication logistics while you work on your project:
• What are your grade goals for this project?
• Can you coordinate meeting out of class? Discuss your schedules.
• What aspects of the project is each of you most interested in exploring? How will you divide the workload among yourselves?
If your group is unable to function effectively, please discuss your concerns with me in time for you to explore options. A group project is designed to share the workload between individuals and to also work effectively as a team.

Process Steps for Preparing Your Business Report

Step 1: Analyze the problem and purpose
• What is the problem being investigated at this time? Why now? What opportunities exist? What difficulties do you anticipate? What problem are you going to solve and why is it important?
• Outline the background information to discover what you need to understand and analyze.
• Review the information on analytical reports (Chapters 11/12, particularly the sections on Feasibility/Justification Reports. Also, focus on the sample report on pages 467-482.)

Step 2: Anticipate the audience and issues
• Who is your audience? Who are you submitting the report to? If your report is circulated more widely around the College, who might read it? How does this affect the language you use? Your tone?

Step 3: Prepare a work plan
• Consider how you will proceed with work on the project over the course of the semester. What deadlines will you set?

Step 4: Implement your research strategies
• You must use at least four secondary (research) sources in your business report:
o One full-text academic periodical article that you have obtained through an online college library database.
o Another full-text periodical article that you found online through the library's search or Google Scholar.
o One website that you believe you can trust for information on your topic. Please do not choose a Wikipedia article.
o At least one other source of your choice.
• Read the articles and summarize what they say about electronic textbooks/books and paper textbooks/books

Step 5: Organize, analyze, interpret, illustrate the data
• Study the material you have gathered from external sources.
o Select information that you can summarize or paraphrase in your report.
o Select statements or phrases that you can quote directly in your report
o Create visuals to represent key findings.

Step 6: Compose the first draft
• Write the report parts. Format the report with title page, table of contents, and references
• Prepare a brief transmittal letter to accompany the report

Step 7: Review, revise, proofread, and evaluate
• Revise, proofread, and polish the final version.
• Participate in the peer review in class and submit the peer review with your final report.

Report Writing Process Assignments

Topic Memo
Deciding on your topic (the problem you will solve) will allow you to get started on this project. Please write a memo to inform me of the problem you are attempting to solve. Your topic memo should include the following:

1. The problem you will solve through your business report (generally, your topic)

2. The scope/limitation of your problem: how can you make this a manageable topic? For example, if you are focusing on the issue of a shortage of parking on college campuses, how can you limit this from looking at all colleges? You might decide to look only at the Lethbridge College parking situation, or at Lethbridge College and the University of Lethbridge. Limits can be geographical or temporal, for example.

3. The significance: why is it important to solve this problem now? Why is the problem pertinent today instead of last year, or ten years ago? If you think a shortage of parking at the Lethbridge College is a problem, maybe it is significant today because there are more students attending the College than ever before.

4. An outline of the research you hope to complete: where might you search for research about your problem and solutions? What might be helpful for you to research?

Progress Report
The verbal progress report provides you with a chance to check in about your work on the business report so far. Be prepared to discuss your progress on the business report in detail. What sources have you found that are helpful? What writing work have you done? Are you having any problems? Do you have any questions?

Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography is a list of source information on a specific subject. Each entry includes both bibliographic information and a descriptive summary. There are several reasons why we write annotated bibliographies:

1. To write your annotated bibliography, you must find at least four sources of information on your proposed research topic. It proves there is information available, which then ensures you have chosen a researchable topic

2. It's an opportunity to practice your summarizing skills

3. It insures that you have completed your research early in the report writing process

As you research, keep your problem question in mind. You will be searching through a lot of information, and your problem question should help you do a more efficient search.

Attachment:- Preparing Your Business Report.rar