Business English- Reporting on Reports

A survey conducted… shows that

According to…

From discussions on the topic

From what I’ve read

From what I’ve seen

(Judging) from…

I’m sure that

I have found that

If we can believe… then

If we look at…

In my experience

In my opinion

It is clear that

It seems clear to me that

Looking at last year’s…

Looking at… (it must be the case that)

Surveys have shown that

There is little doubt that

Using data from… we can say that…

(absolutely) all

a considerable number of/ a substantial number of

a small minority of

a substantial minority of

a tiny minority of

almost all

almost no

many/ a large number of

most/ a majority of

not many/ few

quite a lot of/ a fairly large number of/ quite a few

the vast majority of

very few

very nearly all

virtually all

virtually no

accountants/ finance staff

auditors

bankers

bosses/ CEOs/ CIOs/ CTOs

business partners

consultants

customers/ clients

employees of…

engineers

English-speakers

government…

investors/ shareholders

IT staff

(top) managers

millennials

older people

people in East Asia

people in the… department

readers

researchers

sales staff

(high school/ uni/ grad school/ MBA/ PhD) students

(cram school/ high school) teachers

technical staff

technical writers

… from this country/ region/ …

writers

young people

almost always

almost never

always/ without fail

hardly ever

occasionally

often/ frequently

seldom/ rarely

usually/ generally

are (badly/ well/ un)informed about

are bad at

are confused by

are good at

are guilty of

are ignorant about

are interested in

are not clear about

are sceptical about/ suspicious of

are stressed out by

are told to/ have been told to

are weak at

avoid

consider/ think

could (possibly/ potentially/ conceivably)

dislike

don’t care about

don’t mind

don’t think about

enjoy

expect

have (some/ great) difficulty (in)

have issues/ problems with

have no choice but to

have read/ seen/ studied/…ed

(really) have to/ must (make sure)

haven’t considered

haven’t heard about

ignore

know about

lack

(desperately/ really) need/ require (more)

need to improve/ think more about

pay (little/ no) attention to

prioritise

realise

reject

rely on/ are (over)reliant on

(really/ probably) should

should consider/ think about

suffer from

(don’t) understand (the need for)

(over)use

would benefit from

aims

analysis

annual reports

appendix/ appendices

background

bi-monthly

bullet points

capital letters

(bar/pie/flow)charts

checking

colour(s)

contents (page)

copyright

(front) cover

data/ statistics/ figures

design/ appearance

data privacy/ data protection

distributing

dividing up the work

editing (down)

emphasizing/ highlighting

ending

estimating/ guesswork

feedback

fill in

financial reports

focus(ing)

fonts

footer

footnotes

for the head office

forecasting/ predictions

formality/ friendliness

(…)format(ting)

(over)generalising/ hedging

(line/ bar) graphs

header

(section) headings

humour

(getting) interest

internal – external

introductions

lists

long reports

market research

names

number of pages

organisation/ order

padding/ waffle

paragraphs/ paragraphing

persuading

pictures

planning

preparation

printing

progress reports

proofreading

proposals

punctuation

quarterly reports

quotations

recommendations

readers

research

sales reports

short reports

sources

starting

strong – weak…

summarising

(customer satisfaction) survey (finding)s

tables

title

topics

translation

underline(d/ing)