Conclusions and recommendations are the most widely read sections of any report. Conclusions summarize and explain your findings and are the heart of your report. The ability to draw sound conclusions and make clear recommendations from your research is crucial to business success. Companies value employees who can analyze data and use it to help answer questions and solve problems.

When drawing conclusions, make sure you:

1. are open to sensationalization or exaggeration
2. remain objective with a degree of subjectivity
3. focus on the content, not your audience

Consider the scenario, and then answer the question.

You are making recommendations after researching and writing a report on cubicle height and work productivity.

How can you make your recommendations stronger? Check all that apply.

1. Avoid prior logical analysis.
2. Make your recommendations agreeable to your audience.
3. Avoid words such as maybe and perhaps.
4. Avoid tying your recommendations to your conclusions.
5. State recommendations as commands.

Determine whether each of the following statements is the finding, the conclusion, or the recommendation.

Employee attrition rate after four years with our company is 35 percent, which is 17 percent higher than that of our aspirational peers. Typical employee promotions occur after five years in our company and after four years in competitive firms.

This is the:

1. conclusion
2. finding
3. recommendation

We are losing trained and promising employees more often than our competition due to slow promotion practices within our company.

This is the:

1. conclusion
2. finding
3. recommendation

Implement a leadership development program for promising new employees, and decrease the time before employees are eligible for promotion in order to retain the most promising employees.

This is the:

1. conclusion
2. finding
3. recommendation