Creating Audience Focused Report Writing Headings
Posted by Andrew Jackson on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 @ 09:33 AM
My colleague Robert Good recently wrote about creating effective report introductions - a difficult task at the best of times. Another area that can fall into the difficult category is report writing headings. There are quite a few questions about this from writers. I've briefly answered the most frequently-asked below:
What about numbering?
If numbering your paragraphs and sections is a convention or requirement in your organisation, then clearly you have to go with that. If it's not, and you have some freedom, then there are some important points to consider.
Numbering and granularity
This is often hotly debated. Do you go down as far as topic and paragraph levels with a numbering system? As already stated, in some cases you have no choice. But remember how cumbersome this system can get and how distracting it can be for your readers. So if you are not required to do this, use numbering with great caution.
Numbering and text
If you are using numbers, you really should combine them with text to create a usable heading for your reader. The convention is to put number first and text second. However, considering text is the most meaningful and numbering is purely for sequencing and reference, I'd suggest turning convention on its head and working with text first, numbering second.
Text only
For most short reports text alone combined with page numbering is likely to be quite sufficient for most reference purposes and will provide more meaningful navigation. If your report is long enough that it runs to chapters and sections within chapters than adding numbers does make sense.
What kind of headings?
Of course there is never a one-size-fits-all answer to this question. So much of the answer to this question is determined by context. However, there are some important points worth making.
Your average report writer tends to go for shorter or less descriptive headings. While there are clearly situations where this is good, it's worth considering more descriptive headings.
Thinking about this from the readers perspective surely adds to the validity of this argument. Your readers deserve as much help as they can get to understand what you are communicating to them. Clear, descriptive headings are more likely to aid your reader.
How many headings?
Generally speaking, the more the better. Writers are usually good at providing headings at chapter and section level (even if they are not descriptive enough), but they rarely provide many headings at topic or paragraph level.
This is a pity because this is when your reader is getting into the detail of the content or may be scanning/skimming for specific pieces of information relevant to them. More signposting at this level of detail would make a huge difference to your readers, enabling them to skip over what they don't need to know and focus in on what they do.
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