Executive summary

Structure

There is general agreement on the structure of an executive summary for business use - books and training courses emphasise similar points. Typically, an executive summary will:

• be approximately 5-10% of the length of the main report
• be written in language appropriate for the target audience
• consist of short, concise paragraphs
• begin 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 readable separately from the main report
• sometimes summarize more than one document

Importance

Executive summaries are important as a communication tool in both academia and business. For example, members of Texas A&M University's Department of Agricultural Economics observe that "An executive summary is an initial interaction between the writers of the report and their target readers: decision makers, potential customers, and/or peers. A business leader’s decision to continue reading a certain report often depends on the impression the executive summary gives."

Criticisms

It has been said that, by providing an easy digest of an often complex matter, an executive summary can lead policy makers and others to overlook important issues. Prof. Amanda Sinclair of the University of Melbourne has argued that this process is often active rather than passive. In one study, centred on globalization, she found that policy makers face "pressures to adopt a simple reading of complex issues" and "to depoliticise and universalize all sorts of differences". She claims that "all research was framed under pre-defined and generic headings, such as business case points. The partners' reports were supposed to look the same. The standardization of research occurred via vehicles such as executive summaries: 'executives only read the summaries' we were told". Similarly Colin Leys, writing in The Socialist Register, argues that executive summaries are used to present dumbed down arguments: "there is remarkably little adverse comment on the steep decline that has occurred since 1980 in the quality of government policy documents, whose level of argumentation and use of evidence is all too often inversely related to the quality of their presentation (in the style of corporate reports, complete with executive summaries and flashy graphics)."

References

References

1. "Writing@CSU".
2. "Crafting a Powerful Executive Summary".
3. Lavinsky, Dave. "Business Plan Outline - 23 Point Checklist For Success".
4. "Rough Guide to Business Planning". Greater Merseyside Changeup.
5. "Abstract".
6. Greenhall, Margaret. (2010). ["Report Writing Skills Training Course - How to Write a Report and Executive Summary, and Plan, Design and Present Your Report - An Easy Format for ... of Exercises and Free Downloadable Workbook ". Universe of Learning Ltd.
7. "Writing Guide: Executive Summaries". Colorado State University.
8. "Executive Summary". Miami School of Business. Farmer School of Business.
9. "Guidelines for the writing of an executive summary to accompany reports". Protein Research Foundation.
10. Foster, Lorne. "Writing the Executive Summary". York University, Toronto.
11. "Texas A&M University Department of Agricultural Economics".
12. "Murky Media".
13. "Doing Critical Research for the Government of Australia By Amanda Sinclair".
14. ""The cynical state" by Colin Lays, Socialist Register 2006 p1-27".