Write a one page executive summary on the FB file
Executive Summary
An Executive Summary is a separate document from the main body of your document and must stand alone on its merits. It may be the only page from your report that gets read by top management -- so it must be able to "make the case" for your recommendation or proposal.
The Executive Summary:
1. Summarizes the main points of a longer document (e.g., a business plan or proposal) and presents the essential issues in the paper: main points, analysis and recommendations. It is NOT an introduction, which would tell what you intend to analyze, not what you found from your analysis. If you are writing " this paper will....," then you are writing an introduction and not an executive summary!
2. Establishes the need or states the problem; recommends the solution and explains the value of the solution (why the reader should care); provides logical substantiation (your analysis!) for how you arrived at your recommendation.
3. Is written in text, not a bullet-point outline (quality of analyses cannot be shown through bullet points, which lack integrative logical connections among the bullet pointed ideas or data)
4. Should be one page or at most two pages for longer documents. No cut-and-pasting from the main document. Write from scratch so you are not tempted to provide unnecessary details.
Always proofread the executive summary -- Ask people who haven't read the main document to read the summary and comment on it -- does it present the idea? Does it show the value? Does it "make the case" for your recommendation or proposal through clear logic based on sound data?
If you wish to explore further, this link is a sample of best resources for how to write a top-notch Executive summary:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/summary.html
EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES COMPLETE THE REPORT
In A Nutshell
"Few writers think of the messages they are trying to communicate in a report."
--Bruce Ross-Larson, Riveting Reports, p. 30
CONTENTS
Executive Summaries Provide the Essence
Abstracts Differ from Executive Summaries
Executive Summaries Are Called Different Names
Executive Summaries Briefly Cover Every Main Section
Proportionate Space Is Devoted to Executive Summaries
Executive Summaries Provide the Essence
Executive summaries complete the report, whether an analytical report memo or whatever. Executive summaries are the parts of the reports that are read first. Readers may not even get to the detail in your report. They read the executive summaries to see if the rest of the report is worth reading.
Executive Summaries Are Called Different Names
Executive summaries go by so many different names. Sometimes the executive summary is called an Abstract. You usually find that designation in scientific papers and academic efforts. You can also call the Executive Summary simply a Summary. If you call the Executive Summary a precis, you are probably misnaming it. A precis is usually a sentence summary.
Abstracts Differ from Executive Summaries
Abstracts differ from executive summaries, because abstracts are usually written for a scientific or academic purpose. You see abstracts related to scientific lab reports. You see abstracts related to databases, where a summary or abstract of the article is given. Abstracts, according to Janis Ramey in "How to Write a Useful Abstract," fall into this kind of structure:
First, prepare a topic sentence that encompasses the entire article or whatever you are summarizing.
Next, prepare two or three subordinate sentences that support your main idea or topic sentence.
Then, tie everything together with transition and logic.
That is a well-written abstract. You say what you have to say, and stop.
Executive Summaries Briefly Cover Every Main Section
In this class we are going to include the Introduction (Issue, Purpose, Scope and Limitations, and Alternatives), Significant Considerations, Analysis and Decisions in the executive summary. The executive summary will probably be one or one and one-half pages by the time you finish writing. The executive summary will appear after the transmittal memo and just before the first page of the analytical report memo.
In the executive summary you will probably want to put the Issue (Problem) and Purpose in the first paragraph. The Scope and Limitations as well as the Alternatives (Procedures) will go in the next paragraphs. The Significant Considerations, Analysis, and Decisions will comprise the final paragraphs.
Normally, your executive summary (with double spacing) will run about one to one-half pages of copy. You should make sure you only put in significant Considerations, Analysis, and Decisions.
