4 Ways to Write Better Reports

Reports, whether oral or written, are part of life for many busy professionals. But there is a surefire way to make them work better for your audience while saving everyone valuable time. Graphics.

Why? Because graphics condense text, clarify relationships, and highlight patterns. They allow you to easily show your data to the reader in a clear and concise way.

What’s more, creating graphics can save you time in preparing your report because they can efficiently replace substantial amounts of text.

1.Graphics Condense Text
Graphics are useful for reducing complex text into a picture. Visuals such as this are far easier for the reader to follow than a narrative explanation.

For example, this diagram of an accident scene makes it very easy for anyone to understand the facts of the incident very quickly.

2. Graphics Clarify Relationships
A table of data can be useful for presenting information that needs to be displayed factually. But converting the data into a graphic, such as this bar chart, makes the relationships between the data very clear.

4. Graphics Highlight Patterns
Sometimes, data produce patterns that can be more dramatically displayed in a graphic. The line chart below, showing trends in worldwide population, is a good example of this.

4. Graphics Save You Time and Effort
Creating smart, compelling graphics like these is something anyone can do quickly and easily with SmartDraw.

It’s a win-win. Save time creating your reports and give your readers or audience a result they’ll appreciate and enjoy.