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Graham Hopkins suggests that a well-crafted summary will encourage people to read your long report.

Your main task as a writer in social care is to make things easy for your reader (no Will Self-inspired sesquipedalianism¹ permitted). And if you have just pushed the button to print off copies of your 60-page report on how the department's rivers of revenue have come apart at the funding streams (or whatever), you ought to be aware that to receive such a document is scarier than a duty social worker's phone ringing at 4.45pm on a Friday.

Even if your report abounds with elegant flair, remember one thing: readers won't touch the quality, if they've been scared off feeling the width. What really helps the put-upon reader is a summary: a shortened version distilling the essential detail in order to save the reader time and trouble.

And that's "summary" by the way. Not "synopsis" - more likely to be an abbreviated version of a book or piece of prose. Not "abstract" - which to most people, anyway, means "difficult to understand". Not "outline" - which usually indicates a general idea without specific details yet in place. Not "r‚sum‚" which has too many accents and which would lead Americans to expect they are about to read a CV. And most definitely not "executive summary" - a pompous piece of posturing, if ever there was one. The plain title of "summary" does the job splendidly. Hurrah.

And be upfront with your summary. It should be the first thing you read - after the title or cover page (and, yes, before a contents list; and, yes, before an introduction). But many social care writers do worry that if people read the summary they won't bother with the full report, as if seeing a trailer stops people watching the whole film. Yet these writers have toiled in hell over their report and they feel it deserves to be read in full. The reader must suffer as they have. So, if they succumb to a summary, they usually stash it away at the back - hoping you don't come across it until it's too late.

Having properly given it pole position in your report, you just need to write it. It's interesting how many summaries fail to summarise. Quite often they appear to be little more than bloated introductions, full of background information such as why the report is being written, who was involved, methods used and so on. A summary should - preferably in no more than one side of A4 - pick out the critical details, decisions and conclusions of the report.

One final thought. A liberating aspect of report writing is being free to write sections in any order. You don't have to write it in the order you present it. Indeed, it is advisable that while a summary ought to be the first thing you read, it should be the last thing you write.

¹ Sesquipedalianism: "words characterised by lengthiness"

That’s quote enough of that…

"Young people do not express dissatisfaction with their rooms but the fact remains that they appear small and uninviting."

From a social services inspection report on a children's home.

  "Mrs X has a congenital condition the origin of which is unknown." From a GP

Thanks to Richard Lord, social worker, Huddersfield. Contributions welcome. Please send them to graham.hopkins@rbi.co.uk  

I’m sorry?

"This framework for establishing patient/client interface needs to be constructive enabling us to hear views that might not otherwise be heard so influencing the strategic direction and day to day experience of clients/ patients."

From an outer-London health trust's discussion document on how to find out what patients think of its services.

Please send in examples of jargon, gobbledegook and management-speak to graham.hopkins@rbi.co.uk