12.5 Recommendation Reports
Recommendation reports provide carefully studied opinions and recommendations. This type of report starts from a stated need, a selection of choices, or both and then recommends one, some, or none. For example, a company might be looking at grammar-checking software and want a recommendation on which product is the best. As the report writer on this project, you could study the market for this type of application and recommend one particular product, a couple of products (differing perhaps in their strengths and their weaknesses), or none (maybe none of them are any good). The recommendation report answers the question “Which option should we choose?” (or in some cases “Which are the best options?) by recommending Product A, or maybe both Products A and B, or none of the products.
Organizational Plans for Recommendation Reports
Recommendation reports are generally organized in one of two ways (see Figure 12.1):
- Traditional plan: You start with background and requirements, then move to comparisons, and end with conclusions and recommendations.
- Executive plan: This one moves the conclusions and recommendations to the front of the report and pitches the full discussion of background, requirements, and the comparisons into appendices. That way, the “busy executive” can see the most important information right away, and turn to the detailed discussion only if there are questions.
Typical Contents of Recommendation Reports
The structural principle fundamental to this type of report is this: you provide not only your recommendation, choice, or judgment, but also the data and the conclusions leading up to it. That way, readers can check your findings, your logic, and your conclusions and come up with a completely different view. But, more likely, they will be convinced by all your careful research and documentation. The report can be organized using the Whole to Whole approach from Activity 12.5 or the Point by Point approach shown in Activity 12.6. Both approaches will be discussed in more detail in the next section.
Activity 12.5 | Recommendation Report- Whole to Whole Approach- Reproduced with permission from T. Akar (2019)
Introduction
In the introduction, indicate the purpose of the report: discuss the problem, need, or opportunity that has brought about the report. In addition, briefly explain the data collection method.
Significance of Situation
Explain how this problem or situation affects your organization and the importance of finding a solution. Do research to build a strong argument around the impact of the problem.
Requirements and Criteria
A critical part of recommendation reports is the discussion of the requirements you’ll use to reach the final decision or recommendation. For example, if you’re trying to recommend a tablet computer for use by employees, your requirements are likely to involve size, cost, hard-disk storage, display quality, durability, and battery function.
The requirements section should a