Report writing:
Congratulations, you have started the project, implemented a lot of the activities, and made very good steps towards the success of the project, now it is the time to report on the steps you have completed. The most common narrative reports are “midyear report” (6 months) and annual report”
When working with international partners, usually, they would provide their own template, that means less work for you!
Few steps to follow when writing a report to your financial partner:
10.1. It must look good
The content of the report and the impact that you have seen is indeed very important, but when writing, if you don’t pay attention to aesthetics, the reader will not be pleasant, therefore, some of the content will lose its value.
- Consistent font usage
This is one of the common mistakes that is witnessed in report writing, is that the writer will use different random fonts throughout the report, sometimes, that is okay, if there is a clear reason for that, but if it happens randomly, it shows the writer’s weakness in organization and that can reflect badly on the entire association.
Pay attention when you are copying and pasting from other documents, that is usually when this mistake occurs.
- Consistent font size
This is a similar mistake, that the writer will use different font sizes throughout the document, it would be appreciated by the reader if the size of the fonts were consistent, the same for the body as it is the same for the titles.
You will probably be reporting to people who are very attentive to details, these mistakes will be identified quickly.
You may not get comments on these mistakes, but it will make the reader uncomfortable that it can be shown in other comments.
10.2. It must be coherent
When writing your report, make sure that what are you talking about is coherent. For example, if you are reporting on the activities that you have implemented, it would be best to start with the first activity, slowly moving to the last one. In each activity, make sure to respond to these questions:
- Why was this activity needed?
- When and where the activity was implemented?
- How was the activity?
- What are the impacts of the activity?
Always remember that most of the time, you are writing to someone who lives abroad, and do not know a lot of things about the Tunisian culture and how things generally work, put yourselves in their shoes and try to address some issues from the financial partner’s perspective.
10.3. It must be grammatically correct
Writing in a second language or a third one can indeed be very difficult, but it would reflect well on your report and your association in general, if the language throughout the document is grammatically correct.
It would be helpful when writing reports to have a person within the association to proofread what was written to make sure it looks good and correct.
