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Most people dread writing reports; they also dread reading reports. What they don't realize is that the techniques that make writing more readable make it more powerful. This is especially relevant for professionals in areas such as audit, risk, compliance, and information security.
This small volume provides the tools and techniques needed to improve reports. It does so through addressing crucial concepts all too often overlooked in the familiar rush to perform tasks, complete projects, and meet deadlines.
These concepts - the role of culture in communication; the link between logic and language; the importance of organizing thoughts before writing; and how to achieve clarity - may seem academic or theoretical. They're not. Unless writers understand their own thoughts, actions, and objectives, they cannot hope to communicate them at all - let alone clearly.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Author
Introduction
Part 1: Words in the mindChapter 1: Communication and culture
Chapter 2: Communication within and among teams
Chapter 3: Clarity - the theory
Part 2: Words on the pageChapter 4: Clarity - the practice
Chapter 5: Planning
Chapter 6: Structure and layout
Part 3: Words into actionChapter 7: Findings or observations, and recommendations
Chapter 8: Executive summaries
Chapter 9: Reviewing - making the gain outweigh the pain
Conclusion
Resources
About the author
Sara is an internationally recognized expert in internal audit communications, delivering
tailored report-writing and other training to internal audit, risk and compliance teams
worldwide (www.saraijames.com).
With over 30 years' academic, teaching, writing, publishing and corporate experience in
the US and Europe, she brings a wealth of varied yet specialist expertise to clients and
audiences. Clients include multinational blue-chip organizations in sectors as diverse as
finance, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and aerospace; national and local government;
legal and medical professionals; and charities.
As a member of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (UK and Ireland) Technical
Guidance Working Group, Sara has produced many governance, risk and internal audit
advisory pieces. Topics include Covid-19-related working practices; privacy legislation
(GDPR); taxation (IR35); auditing cultural and heritage entities; and of course reporting.
Sara has also produced articles on clear writing for Audit & Risk magazine, and spoken
at numerous audit conferences and heads of internal audit forums.
Sara is the official rapporteur for the annual international defense internal audit
conference. In this role, she is responsible for producing a definitive report that meets
UK Ministry of Defence standards and is read by specialists at NATO, NGOs and
multiple national European defense departments.
Finally, Sara has been fortunate to live, study and work in different countries, including
the US, the UK, France and the then-Soviet Union, and speaks five languages. These
experiences and skills give her invaluable insight into cross-cultural communication and
multi-national teams. She is also a recognized internationally scholar on language and
literature, and is regularly asked to contribute essays, articles and conference papers.
Summary
This small volume provides the tools and techniques needed to improve reports. It does so through addressing crucial concepts all too often overlooked in the familiar rush to perform tasks, complete projects, and meet deadlines.
