Reports
Report treasure hunt
Karen Inkster Vance
Suggested course level
Lower level undergraduate
Activity purpose
- Students will be become familiar with and be able to identify the required components and design formatting of a formal business report.
Materials required
- Printed copies of a formal report (1 per pair)
- Treasure Hunt Worksheet (1 per pair)
Activity instructions
- Have students get into pairs and give each team a copy of a formal report and a treasure hunt worksheet.
- Together, students must answer the questions on the worksheet by finding the answers within the formal report.
- The first team to finish with all the answers correct is the “winner.” I use a copy of our annual university accountability report that is published online, but there are many corporations and government agencies that also post their annual reports to the public.
Debrief questions / activities
- Review the worksheet answers with the class and provide further explanations about components and formatting as you go along. For example: What did you notice about the page numbering? How were graphs and tables labeled and introduced in the text? How is the table of contents formatted?
Activity variations
- You could adapt this to an online course by using digital versions of a formal report and having students complete an online quiz.
Additional resources / supplementary resources
Tags: document formatting, hands-on, small group, game, formal report
