Guidelines for Preparing Your Executive Report

Contents 1. Title Page: the title should clearly and succinctly communicate the central focus of the paper. The name of every person who is to receive credit for the project must appear on the title page. No name, no credit. 2. Table of contents: List of each of the major sections, including references and appendices, and specify the page on which they begin. (-5 points) 3. Executive Summary: Provide a 100-150 word summary of the purpose and outcome of the project. This goes on a separate page that follows the table of content. Bullet points can be highly effective to summarize findings. (-5 points) 4. Body: The structure for the body of the report is described in detail below. 5. References: Whenever you use someone else’s idea or work in developing an argument or providing an explanation, you must cite the author(s). To do otherwise is plagiarism. You can impress yourself, your instructor and client by citing material from CMST 311. (-5 points) 6. Tables and Figures: You may have numerical data or illustrations that you need to present. If so, these things go after the references; tables first, figures second. If it has numbers on it, then it is a table. If it is a graphical illustration, then it is a figure (e.g., pie chart). Number and title each table/figure so that you can easily refer to them in the text of your paper. For example, “As Table 1 shows…” 7. Appendices: This is where all of the materials that you used in your project should go. Add appendices as you need them, organizing them topically. For example, your print message might go in the first, the text of your public presentation in the second one, and the data from your evaluation research in the third one. They should be designated A, B, C, etc. (-5 points)

Style

Your report should be typed using APA style. It