What’s the different between reports and essays?

This post was originally added to Learnhigher on: 15th Jan, 2012

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Types of media: Helpsheet

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Unknown Author, (Unknown affiliation)

Description

A table outlining features of essays and reports in relation to one another.

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Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0

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A report is a piece of informative writing that describes a set of actions and analyses any results in response to a specific brief. A quick definition might be: “This is what I did and this is what it means.”

You may also have assignments which are not called reports but which are still pieces of informative writing; for instance, some dissertations and project write-ups fall into this category.

A good way to understand the key features of reports is to see how they differ from essays as a type of academic writing.

Reports are…	Essays are…
Formally structured Informative and fact-based Written with a specific purpose and reader in mind Written in a style appropriate to each section Always include section headings Sometimes use bullet points Often include tables or graphs Offer recommendations for action	Semi-structured Argumentative and idea-based Not written with a specific reader in mind Written in single narrative style throughout Usually do not include sub-headings Usually do not include bullet points Rarely include tables or graphs Offer conclusions about a question