You will use different types of writing for different sections within a report. For example:
- You may use simple past tense to describe procedures and methods.
- When reviewing what is known in the field, you may use the present tense to emphasise the currency of information.
- When analysing and interpreting information you may use comparative and evaluative language.
- In your discussion, you may use modal forms such as ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘tend to’, ‘suggests’ because you are speculating rather than describing known facts.
Below is an excerpt from Discussion of a report published in 2019 by the ACCC entitled the Gas Inquiry Report 2017–2020 Interim Report.
Overall, our analysis of legacy contracts suggests that the margins of the big three retailers identified in this inquiry may be transitory. However, we note that to the extent that the retailers’ margins are used by the big three retailers to absorb the increasing wholesale costs, there may not be a noticeable reduction in retail gas prices. Moreover, their competitors—the smaller retailers—are likely to already face higher cost structures that more closely reflect current gas market prices and therefore may not have the same capacity to absorb increasing wholesale costs in their retail margins.
Source: Competition, A., & Consumer Commission. (2019). Gas inquiry 2017-2020: interim report-December 2018. https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/serial-publications/gas-inquiry-2017-2025/gas-inquiry-january-2020-interim-report
Note the use of tentative language in this excerpt: ‘overall’, ‘suggests that’, ‘may be’, ‘there may not be’, ‘are likely to’, ‘may not have’. Tentative language is used when interpreting or speculating. Adopting this more tentative stance protects the writer from challenge and provides the opportunity to build on or later correct these findings. To some extent a report is an argument and tentative language is one strategy that enables the writer to persuade the reader, especially in the discussion.
