Typical Structure
There is wide general agreement on the structure of a "typical" executive summary - books and training courses emphasise similar points. Typically, an executive summary will
- be possibly 5-10% or so of the length of the main report
- be written in language appropriate for the target audience
- consist of short and concise paragraphs
- start with a summary
- be written in the same order as the main report
- only include material present in the main report
- make recommendations
- provide a justification
- have a conclusion
- be able to be read separately from the main report
- sometimes summarize more than one document
Read more about this topic: Executive Summary
Famous quotes containing the words typical and/or structure:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)