2.5 Concluding and making recommendations
The really important parts of ‘real world’ reports, the parts which most readers will
look at, are the Conclusion (which summarises what the research has shown), and
the Recommendations, which demonstrate how what has been learnt can be
applied. Some reports do not require recommendations: the Terms of Reference
or the assignment guidelines will make clear whether any practical outcome, and
so ‘recommendation’, is expected. If the ToRs do this, then the recommendations
section is the most important part of the report for those who commissioned it.
The recommendations must be both relevant and feasible and cover:
• what needs to be done
• who needs to do it
• how, when and where it needs to be done
(University of Melbourne, 2010)
3 GUIDANCE ON NUMBERING, PAGE NUMBERS, HEADINGS AND
USING BOLD
3.1 Numbering
Note that the Executive Summary, Contents List, Reference List and Appendices
are not numbered. With these exceptions, all parts of a report should be numbered.
Numbering is essential in reports as it allows the reader to find information quickly.
Each numbered section must have a title, and this heading or sub-heading should
give the reader a good idea of what is contained in that section.
3.2 Page numbers
The Executive Summary and the Contents List do not have page numbers. The
pages of a report are numbered from the page which contains the Introduction, so
‘Introduction’ always begins on page 1. Page-numbering stops at the end of the
last main section (‘Conclusions’ or ‘Recommendations’), so the Reference List and
Appendices do not have page numbers either.
3.3 Headings
The main headings are not allocated a page number when these sections are
divided into sub-sections. Therefore, of the main section headings in the Contents
List above, only ‘6 Recommendations’ has a page number because only this
section is not subdivided. Similarly, subheadings are not given a page number
where they are themselves subdivided.
5