Jason Kaufman Formal or Informal reports

Which one to write? It's not determined by preference, but more by the purpose for which the writing is taking place. According to Technical Communication in the Twenty First Century(pg.621),The differences between the two are that formal reports tend to be longer than informal, more thorough and detailed, formatted in distinct ways, and often composed for multiple audiences.

Although Informal reports tend to be shorter, it doesn't make them any less important. Informal reports are used everyday in businesses' and very important. They also have identifiable sections, such as an introduction, body, and a conclusion. Informal reports can take on the layout and design elements of formal reports, and can also be composed in different genre types, such as:

• Letters


• E-mails


• Memos


• Presentations

Informal reports can be made for purposes such as to inform, analyze, explain, recommend or even to persuade a party. A party or audience:

• Internally(coworker, supervisors. or executives)


• Externally(clients, customers, or outside agencies)

Regardless whether your report is formal or informal, a writer must always consider the needs and backgrounds of the audience. To get an idea of the needs and backgrounds of the audience, most people do some research, and though this may be time consuming, it is very important and must be done. Determining who the audience is correlated to the workplace situation. Different situations, different reports, different audience. The various types of informal reports are:

• Progress reports


• Lab reports


• Directives
  
• Incident reports

The main types of Formal reports are:

• Recommendation reports(offers options and best suggestion)


• Evaluation reports(an educated opinion on someone or something)


• Feasibility reports(determines whether a plan is possible and will solve the problem)

Another difference between formal and informal reports focus on the kind of problems that need to be solved and different audience expectations. Formal reports will typically usually solve bigger. more complex problems and therefore usually taking more time than informal reports. If you have more questions about about the difference between formal and informal writing, I would take a look at more videos from this youtube user(username): ExpertVillage

reference:

Dobrin, S.I., Keller C.J., & Weisser C.R. (2002).. Technical Communications in the Twenty First Century Upper Saddle River , NJ: Pearson Custom Publishing. pg. 621