A report on a student meeting

Learn how to write a report.

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and tips and do the exercises.

Improvements to Oak Hall

Introduction

This report aims to describe problems in Oak Hall of Residence and discuss possible maintenance work to solve them. The two biggest issues were discussed at a meeting on 12 May, which was attended by 165 of the 250 students who live in the building.

Issue 1: temperature in rooms

A number of students complained that the second-floor bedrooms are too hot. Concerns were raised about lack of sleep and students finding it hard to study in their rooms. Air conditioning was suggested as a possible solution.

However, there is no budget left for installing air conditioning this academic year. Also, installation can only be carried out during holidays as students cannot be present in the building while the work takes place.

Issue 2: improving wheelchair access to Oak Café

It was noted that wheelchair users can only access Oak Café from the back and not the front entrance nearer the lifts. This makes access to the café difficult for wheelchair users. The university is looking to improve its wheelchair access in general by installing ramps in key areas and work can take place during term time with no issues for staff or students.

Conclusion and recommendations

Taking the factors mentioned into account, August would be the best time for the installation of air conditioning. Until then, the university could consider supplying fans to each second-floor room so students can sleep and study comfortably.

The front of the café is recommended as an ideal place to install a wheelchair ramp. This work can take place immediately and should be a priority.

Tips

Start with the aim of the report and say where the information comes from.
Use subheadings to make the layout clear. Follow a logical structure, e.g.:
- Introduction
- The problem(s) (Give each issue a separate section)
- Conclusion and recommendations
Assume the person reading the report has asked you to write it and needs only a brief introduction to the situation.
Use an impersonal, formal style.
Use the passive to keep the focus off individual people:
Concerns were raised about ...
... was suggested ...
You should also use objective language for recommendations and conclusions:
... would be the best …
the university could consider ...
... is recommended ...

Discussion

Have you ever had to write a report? What for?

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Language level

B1 - Intermediate

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From this session, I am very happy to know the useful way for writing a report. In particaluar, I could learn that passive sentencs are more frequent for the type of report. And also the fact that inpersonal expression should be used in a way of expressing an pupose of the report is very useful to me. I really appreciate if someome correct my poor sentence since I just start an English writing recently. Thank you.

Hello minjulu,

I'm glad you found our material helpful, and well done on making progress in your writing.

I'm afraid we can't correct users' posts. We're a small team here and there are many thousands of users on the site. We simply don't have the time to offer a correction service like that.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

"I would be appreciate If someone could correct my poor sentence since I have just started English writing"

Hello hungrymoon

This sentence is correct, though please note that 'if' should not be capitalised. I'd also recommend 'writing in English' instead of 'English writing'.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

When I was senior in a college, Writing a report is mandatory as professer assess student's score. It means we had to try everything as we can. First, we collected materials related our assignment. And then, we summarised contents. Third, we sorted them following order. Lastly we made titles and subtitles.

all students have had to write a report.. I wrote a Strawberry cultivation project. It was very had for me. but I did

I made a hypothetical report when I was in a Celpip test. I was asked to make a formal complaint about a fake scenario that collision between a garbage truck and a tree. As you may notice by now, I failed the test because I didn't establish these tips here. For future reference, I will follow the tips above: 1. Initiate the report with a particular subject matter to gain a reader's focus. 2. Establish a logical structure by using subhead. 3. Apply appropriate tone and style in writing. Thank you!