Recommendation
Reports Issues
Introduction
 State
the purpose
– Saying “recommendation report” is may not
mean much to the readers
 Provide
an overview of the report
– State the criteria. Don’t justify them here.
– Don’t give the conclusions
– Include a forecasting statement
State the purpose up front

In my analysis, I will evaluate two accounting text books
to be used by the Accounting 2401 course taught at East
Carolina University. They are Corporate Financial
Accounting, by Carl S. Warren and James M. Reeve, and
Financial Accounting, by Jan R. Williams, Susan F. Haka,
Mark S. Bettner and Robert F. Meigs.
Don’t say what audience knows

The most important thing an accounting student will need to succeed
in the Accounting 2401 course is their text book. There are many
textbooks that can be used but there is one that is always better than
the other. The instructors, as well as the student, have to be captivated
by the textbook. The student has to want to know more about the
subject and the instructor has to want to teach the subject to the best of
their ability. Having an impeccable text book helps both the student
and the teacher be able to perform to the best of their ability. Some
text books only last a few semesters, some last longer. I plan to
recommend a text book that will surpass all the expectations and last
for more than 2 or 3 semesters; it will last for 2 or 3 years.
Use lists
 Hard

to find specific points in a long paragraph
While both text books are great in comparison, one text book clearly has a better
advantage over the other. The content in each book covers all the possible aspects of
accounting that need to be covered. However, the Corporate Financial Accounting
text book was much easier to read. The Financial Accounting text book was much
more difficult because it did not use as many figures and captions as the Corporate
Financial Accounting text book. There was a lack of example problems in the
Financial Accounting text book, whereas in the Corporate Financial Accounting text
book, there was an abundance of example problems in each chapter. As far as the
complexity, the Financial Accounting text book would be much harder for the average
accounting student. Both text books used an array of different figures and captions;
the figures and captions in the Corporate Financial Accounting text book were much
more appealing because of the colors. The Corporate Financial Accounting textbook
had complex problems; however, they were much easier to understand because of the
breakdown of the problems
Hard page breaks….not returns
No extra returns
Figure captions are not text boxes
Identify book in figure captions
Figure 1: Normal Ledger Account Balance
Chart.
Figures must have meaning
Tables must be meaningful
Criteria
 Define
the evaluation points
 Justify why these evaluation points
 Explain how you will measure them
 Put in own section. Not with evaluation.
 Might include a section on why other points
were not used as criteria
Evaluation
 Evaluation
each option separately
– Evaluate as stand alone item
 Compare
the options
 Do not mix the evaluation and comparison
 Finish with a clear statement of which
option is best
 Use sub-headings
Conclusion
 Summary
and restatement of evaluation
 Longer than the executive summary
 Restate criteria and evaluation
– Never assume rest of report has been read
– A table works well
 Make
a clear final conclusion and justify it
Long enough???
No new information in conclusion
 This
must be found in the analysis section
Table showing conclusions
Criteria
Coverage of Key Topics
Readability
Thomas and Rosa
o More logical
presentation of circuit
analysis techniques
o More and better design
problems
o Useful headers
o Nice bulleted list
chapter summary
Dorf
o Early emphasis and
systematic approach
toward design
o Clean page layout
o Effective heading
o Nice presentation of
figures and tables
End