Description	Narration	
Image of a student  and mentor talking. Text: What is a report? Says what you did. Describes, analyses and evaluates.	Student: I’ve had to write lots of essays but what’s a report?
Mentor: It’s a piece of writing that reports on something that you did, usually some research. It describes analyses and evaluates what you found out.
Student: Is it very different? How would I structure it?
Mentor: A report has an expected format and structure. Have a look at this report outline.
	
Visual representation of the main structural features of a report including the Executive summary, Introduction, Results/discussion, Conclusion, Recommendations and Reference list	Student: Right so what’s the difference between an executive summary and an introduction?
Mentor: Well, an executive summary summarises the whole report. There’s usually one sentence for each section and you always write it last.
	
Summary of Executive summary: Summarises the whole report, usually one sentence for each section, write it last	Mentor: See how the writer summarises each main section in one sentence. 
	
Model of Executive summary. The aim of this report was to investigate Unilab staff attitudes to the use of mobile phones in staff and team meetings [introduction – context and purpose]. A staff survey and policies on mobile phone use from a number of similar companies were analysed [method]. There was significant support for a clear company policy on mobile phone use including their banning in certain situations. [results] The results of this research reflected the findings from similar studies. [discussion] The report concluded that personal mobile phones should not be turned on during all staff meeting times. [conclusion]	Student: You’re right it’s got a really definite structure.
Mentor: Now compare this to an introduction. The introduction includes the context or topic, the purpose and what is covered in the report. 
	
Model of an introduction. There has been a great increase in the use of personal mobile phones. Unilab management are now concerned at the use of mobile phones during meetings.[context] This report seeks to look at the issue of the use of mobile phones in staff meetings. [purpose] The report outlines staff and management concerns to mobile phone use and compares this to other similar studies. [what is covered]	Student: Ok so it’s quite different. What other sections do I need to know?
Mentor
The main sections are the Findings & Discussion where you describe and analyse your findings and the Conclusion and Recommendations.
	
Textual representation of other sections such as:
 Results and Discussion [describes research findings and analyses and interprets results]
Conclusion [sums up what the research found and relates the findings to a broader context
Recommendations [makes suggestions for improvement based on the findings]	Student: That seems pretty straightforward.