When (if ever) were you taught how to write a report?

In My Humble Opinion
21

1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school?

Yes. We had to do “book reports” with paragraphs with “topic sentences” as early as grade school and “research papers” with short bibliographies in high school. But I really learned the basics of report writing in AP English as a high school senior.

2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school?

Undergrad, no. I tested out of low-level English Composition. I learned the basics of legal writing in law school.

3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

Only in English, IIRC. But I was always a pretty strong writer and IME the expectations for writing in non-English classes was always pretty low, so I would not have expected to receive much correction in those classes anyway. There was more attention paid to basics of writing like grammar and spelling in Legal Writing in law school than there ever was in non-English classes in university.

4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

English Lit. and History, 1992, Law, 1995.

22
  1. probably wrote my first big report in 4th grade
  2. yeah, in the required writing classes, but other classes still required papers
  3. even in animal science papers spelling, clarity, and organization counted
  4. major: 2 years animal science, 1 year sociology, expected graduation 2008

as a side note, you can’t (or shouldn’t) be able to get through a soc class without being able to write papers

23

  1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school? Yes. That was part of the cirriculum my freshmen year of high school

  2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school? No, it was assumed we would have already learned it. ETA: There were two freshmen Comp classes that most incoming students were required to take. I took AP English in high school, and got a 4 on the AP test - so I didn’t have to take either one. IIRC, if you got a 3 you could skip the first one. No idea why, I didn’t learn ANY of my grammar/spelling/organizational skills in my AP class. If you didn’t have those skills already, you wouldn’t have been taking the class.

  3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?
    Yes, spelling, grammar & organization almost always mattered, though they were only ever taught in English (and not after freshmen year - maybe not in high school at all, I’m not sure). Teachers were generally more lenient for test essay questions, since there was a time limit, but essays/reports done at home were not expected to have grammatical & spelling errors. I went to high school in the 1990’s, so there was no reason we couldn’t use spelling & grammar checks on our papers.

  4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?
    English/Literature major, graduated in 2003

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Thanks for all your answers so far. Please keep 'em coming. I guess I’m trying to gauge how unreasonable my expectations are with respect to writing skills from that particular demographic.

The OP was inspired by a short (3-page) paper sent to me this morning. A friend of mine has been working with undergrads at another school as part of a project designed to give students the experience of thinking up a research project, doing it, and then writing it up for review and publication (on the web). I’m playing the part of anonymous reviewer. First iteration, there were a lot of organizational problems. They struck me as rookie mistakes, though, and I offered as much constructive criticism as I could without re-writing the thing for them.

What I saw this morning was supposed to be the revised version… and it’s almost as bad as before. Yes, it’s possible that they were simply lazy about making fixes. However, based on my interactions with a couple new grad students in my own department, it also seems totally possible that they just didn’t know how to make the substantive changes I suggested. (All the mechanical stuff was done.) I’m depressed by the possibility that these kids have never really been taught proper writing skills.

For the record, I started getting instruction in report writing in 7th grade English class, and that continued into high school in various subjects. At freshman orientation in college, I remember well being told that the university was requiring all professors, regardless of subject, to take writing style into account in their grading (and I wrote copiously for damn near every class). That was roughly 20 yeara ago. Specialized writing skills for professional reports and journal papers came later, as needed.

I’m pleased to see that WhyNot had a teacher like one of mine, who also emphasized the “tell 'em what you’re going to tell 'em, tell 'em, and tell 'em what you told 'em” approach. That’s about 85-90% of the battle in communicating effectively, and it amazes me that some people are apparently not even taught that much.

25

I went to a private school with an excellent English department. We started learning grammar just after we were learned how to write, and we were expected to write reports in all of our classes. Then I got to my junior year English class taught by Satan herself. She thought it was amusing to assign us essays like, “Romeo and Juliet, explain the plot in five sentences” except worse. I’ve tried to block the memory out. The result was inevitably, for all of us, these ridiculous runon sentences as we tried to comply with her rules. I’ve thankfully never had a teacher like that again.

The trade off for our school’s excellent reputation in English was our dismal science department. Biology was okay, but chemistry and physics were both a joke. They’ve both supposedly gotten better. Oh, and the roof leaked and rotted the rug. But that’s another bitch entirely.
-Lil

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  1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school?

Introduced to writing reports in Grade 5, taught how to write a report in Grade 7, and in more detail again in Grade 11 Geography. I didn’t really learn how to write an essay until Senior history and taught more effectively in Senior English the next semester.

  1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school?

Yes. In a Junior year international business class. We had to do a 45 minute presentation coupled with a report of some serious length and the teacher went into great detail about effectively formatting reports and presentations. In a junior year market research class we had to perform market research and break down the numbers (report came in at around 150 pages incidentally, I was always proud of the size of that report if nothing else) . The teacher taught us how these specific reports are usually written but not necessarily reports in general.

  1. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

No, we were basically just informed on format. I never learned grammar in public or high school (seriously). I completely missed it. My dad taught me when I was about 12 or 13. There were many tears.

  1. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

doubled in Business and Economics. 96 to 00

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1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school?

Both. It first came up in about third grade in the context of book reports. We went on to progressively more difficult forms after that.

2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school?

In college, no. In law school, yes. But legal writing has its own conventions which one would be unlikely to discover spontaneously.

3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

I would not have dared to turn in a paper without proofreading for grammar and spelling. Repeated errors of grammar and spelling got you sent to Sr. Karen Marie to be reacquainted with The Elements of Style and the OED.

4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

A.B. English, 1984

edited to fix a typo. See, I generally do proofread.

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Um, that’s we learned to write, not we were learned…

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  1. **Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school? **
    Yes. How to write reports was first addressed around sixth grade. We were taught how to do reports in both English and Science classes. I took a non-fiction writing class in 10th grade and we didn’t cover a lot of new ground.

  2. **Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school? **
    Not that I recall. There was a little bit of “correcting” students’ styles in our freshman English class, but most professors seemed to think you’d know the basics of how to write a report by the time you were 18.

3.** If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?**
Just spelling in non-English classes. My mythology professor based part of our grades on mechanics, but he didn’t teach people to improve them given it was a class with 200 students.

  1. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?
    English Education. I graduated in 1999.

I can also say that all of the departments of education I’ve worked with (about a dozen states at this point) expect that students are taught report writing between the 5th and 10th grades.

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*1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school? *

Some in grade school (I remember having to do a 7 page report in grade 8) and some in high school.

*2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school? *

Yes, we were. It was drilled into us by multiple teachers.

3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

Grade school was mostly English class, as well as Social Studies. Both of these classes had a two part final where half was a written essay and half was a multiple choice. You were marked both on content and your grammar, spelling etc. College we had multiple courses where we learned to do reports. Two Business Communications classes, as well as Organizational Behaviour and a couple others… and that was just the first year. We wrote about 6 or so reports over the two years with the last one being a group effort that came out to about 50 pages (just the report, not including the summary, bibliography etc). A major portion of our mark was how we formatted it, including grammar and spelling. That last one was tiring.

4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

Business Administration with an Accounting major. My last full-time semester was 2006 and I’m still doing some classes at night.

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One of the profs in the tech writing program at Waterloo had a close look at university student papers over several decades. Essentially the kids at that time were no better and no worse than those who went before in previous decades. Most couldn’t write their way out of a paper bag.

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No, never taught how to write a report, especially a book report.

I was a huge reader, though, and that pretty much killed me for writing anything like what the teachers were expecting. I tried to write things that would be interesting to read. It defied my imagination that they actually wanted a boring piece of crap.

I was nearly through high school before I figured out that a book report wasn’t supposed to be a book review. I honestly thought I shouldn’t put in stuff that would “spoil” the book for anyone that read my report. I thought I was supposed to tell what I thought of the book, and why it was good, or wasn’t etc. I honestly still don’t know what the heck a “book report” is supposed to be.

33

I don’t remember specific grades, but by the time I left high shool I knew papers generally needed an introduction with a thesis statement, a body consisting of supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion that included a summary.

Oh yeah, Comp I, Comp II, and Advanced Composition. In those classes we wrote descriptive narratives, critiques, analyzed literature, and wrote research papers.

We used MLA in English, APA for some other classes, and CMS for History. Most of my instructors, aside from the English instructors of course, weren’t all that concerned with grammar. Their primary concern was that the paper needed to be coherant and correctly cited.

History. Ongoing project.

Marc

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  1. Yes. Brother Alfred Salz in Western Civ. Instead of multiple-choice tests, we were required to write outlines of an essay we would have written on the subject if we only had the time.

  2. No, what I learned in High School was more than sufficient.

  3. While other classes supported my education on the subject, it really was Brother Salz who was the primary source on writing reports.

  4. If it helps given my answers, Computer Science, and I finished classes in '94 (though I didn’t graduate till '97; take the date that works best for your hypothesis).

JOhn.

35

  1. Are you kidding? Hammered into my skull. I don’t when exactly but it was in high school. And yet I still never got the hang of footnotes and proper bibliographies. That’s why I when into fiction. And then my senior year AP English teacher hammered in the literary critique/essay. She have very specific ideas about what it was. She never liked one of mine. But I aced the AP test. And she got fired for drinking in the teacher’s lounge. (Shadenfrueden moment)

  2. No. I skipped most of the basic English classes because I got credit for the AP test. Did I mention I aced the AP test? 'Cause I did. Ace the AP test.

  3. Yes.

  4. Photography. About twenty years ago.

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>1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book
>report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school?

Yes, in grade 9 through 11. In grade 9 we even had a small textbook on the subject with amusing cartoon drawings.

*2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school? *

No, we were supposed to have known that already, which fortunately I did.

3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

I was taught how in English and Geography/History classes.

4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

Linguistics major, graduated in 2003.

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1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school?

Yes. I think they had us writing our first tiny 5-paragraph papers around grade 4 or 5. They continued to periodically instruct us in technique up through early high school, which basically gave me free time to stare into the corner and daydream.

2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school?

No. There do exist classes where I am that are meant to teach you this, but I avoided them entirely by being admitted to the Honors program. Although I later dropped it (not enough Honors courses in my field to complete the required hours), doing this basically gave me a free pass to take two semesters of an advanced, combined English/humanities course, rather than getting stuck in ENG105 and some randomly-chosen course about “diversity”.

3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?

Depends on what you count as a ‘report’. The “research/thesis paper” format was taught only in English classes, but proper form for lab writeups was taught in our sciences classes. Shockingly enough, in four years of French I was never required to write a paper in it, although I did compose some poetry for a contest.

4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?

I had four majors in college, do you want all of them? :smiley: Three out of four were in the general area of languages and social sciences, though, so I’ll go with the last, which was Sociology/Comm Theory. In none of those classes did they ever cover how to write a paper; they expected you to know that already. Sociology in particular is a lot less sternly academic in its literature than even closely-related fields like anthropology; as long as you seem to have a point, passive voice isn’t required, and irony and sarcasm are acceptable. :slight_smile: If you do qualitiative sociology you’re expected to be able to write readably and with a clear argument; if you do quantitative sociology, you’re expected to be able to write a proper statistical paper/lab report, and the sarcasm goes in the ‘Discussion’ section.

I’m still in school, currently in a holding pattern as they have canceled my chosen BS program, and applying for study-abroad programs/grad school.

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**1. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report (book report, science report, whatever) in grade school/high school? **
I went to Catholic schools for grade school and high school. I recall being taught how to write reports for grade-school courses but the most significant experience was in last-year high school. We had an English teacher who made it his mission to teach us university-standard writing. He introduced us to Strunk and graded our papers on style as well as content.
**2. Were you ever explicitly taught how to organize and write a report in college or grad school? **
Yep. My university strongly suggested that students take a ‘Study Skills’ course (not a whole-term course; I think it was a few evening sessions) in which we were introduced to library resources and taught how to construct papers properly. It pretty much verified what I learned in high school. I also had to write a thesis-like paper for my undergrad degree.
3. If yes to either 1 or 2, were you taught how only in English class, or did other subject teachers also make an effort to correct grammar, spelling, organization, etc. in addition to the subject matter?
Seems to me most teachers did.
4. What major were you in college, and how long ago was that?
I have a BA (Hons) and an MA in, basically International Relations. I went to school before the days of ‘spell it however you like; you’ll figure it out later’ :wink:

39

Well, the history of how I was taught to write a report is an interesting one. IT dates back to Mr. Fennis of Grade 10 English who always stressed the need to make a point quickly and clearly. I remember Mr. Fennis the most because he reminded me of Stan Irwin and you don’t know who that is, it’s not important except to say he was the cartoon voice of Lou Costello on the Abbott and Costello cartoon of the late sixties, which I watched in frequent reruns as a kid, right after Batman and The Banana Splits. I have to admit taking Batman pretty serious because as a kid you don’t know and better, right, but the final shot of Banana Splits where these cheerful animated characters suddenly morph into static painted images on a rickety wooden fence always disturbed me, kinda like the way Sundays sometimes get to me, with this weird lightheaded feeling I’ve always called “the Sunday feeling” even if it hits me on, say, a Tuesday. Anyway, if I was in the middle of writing a report and the Sunday feeling got me, I’d pretty much have to drop the pen right there and take a few deep breaths. I never understood the cause of the Sunday feeling - it wasn’t diet-oriented because I’d get it after a breakfast of Shreddies or a night of scarfing down corn chips and salsa. I always get the hot salsa, because when junk like that is mass-marketed, what the faceless corporation labels as “medium” is barely beyond ketchup while the “hot” is barely acceptable once Tabasco is added. My dad’s really big on Tabasco, even more than me, and I’ve put Tabasco on popcorn. Heck I remember asking for a Tabasco bottle at a bar after I’d popped a bag of microwave popcorn and getting a dubious glance from some bar-bimbo, who though Tabasco was weird and toxic but didn’t mind stinking the place up with her cigarette which I think was some particularly awful American brand. My mom smokes those occasionally and the stink lasts a long damn time.

Anyway, Mr. Fenner taught me a lot and I remember most of it, so let me know if I can help.

40

Learning to write a proper report in junior high school was one of the most useful parts of my education. In Eighth Grade, Mr. Elsenpeter, my English teacher, taught me the most basic form. Since then, I have always been effective using variations of what he taught me, from school to the legal briefs I write today.

First, the basic structure I learned was introduction/topic, body with examples, and conclusion. The introduction would start with a broad, grabbing concept and narrow to a focused topic sentence. The body would be a series of appropriately detailed examples or expositions, each with their own topic sentence and frequently numbered to lay bare the organization of the text. Finally, the conclusion would briefly explain what was shown about the topic and expand it out to how it ties into broader concepts.

Second, in high school we focused on outlining and writing in this basic form, mainly in English class, but also when we wrote reports in other subjects. Although I recall a great deal of emphasis on outlining larger papers before we wrote, I guess I had internalized this structure enough that I don’t remember much emphasis on structuring the report. High school was, however, where I learned proper citation of sources.

Third, as a business and engineering major in college, graduating in 1989, I did many reports and papers but got little education on report writing. Because I took AP English in high school, I never took an English or composition course in college. Courses in other subjects required papers, but I don’t recall them spending much time how to structure or write them. In Law School we had a course in legal writing, which focused on legal research and citation, but had a healthy component on on how to structure legal memoranda and briefs. though this was once more a variation on what I learned from Mr. Elsenpeter.

The basic structure of a report I learned in eighth grade has served me well through my education and my career. Although the basic form seems laughably simple, it is infinitely expandable and highly effective. Indeed, the appellate brief I’m writing today fits squarely into this format. All students would do well to learn it early and apply it whenever they are asked to do virtually any formal writing.