CHAPTER 1

Report Characteristics

What do a manager at Bank of America, a BestBuy.com manager, a broker for Unique Import Export Company of Houston, and an executive director of the nonprofit organization United Way have in common? Although their jobs involve widely different duties, one task is common to all: preparing reports.

The word report may remind you of your student days when you wrote term papers, book reviews, and case studies. But those documents differ from on-the-job reports in many respects. While students write term papers to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject, you will create business reports to influence the actions of other people. Although school reports usually flow upward (from student to instructor), business reports ...

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