Getting Started With Your Report

Understanding the Sections of Your Report

Title page

Abstract

Table of contents

Introduction

Body

Recommendations

References

Appendices

General Technical Writing Guidelines

Works Cited

Table of Contents

Most reports will contain a Table of Contents that lists the report’s contents and demonstrates how the report has been organized. You should list each major section in your Table of Contents. Sometimes you may want to use additional descriptive headings throughout your report and for your Table of Contents. Using descriptive headings can help readers to see how your report is organized if the section headings are not clear enough. This is likely to be true especially if most of your report is contained in one long section called Body or Discussion that includes everything from the materials and methods you used to the results you found and the conclusions you draw. In this case, it might be best to include additional headings to indicate where readers can look specifically to read about your materials and methods or conclusions.

Consider the two examples below. Which would be more helpful in finding information within the report?