You have been contracted to write a comparative report for Ever After Catering, a catering company that is considering a partnership with one of two wedding planning companies. You have received a description of the subject of the report and some notes for the executive summary. Your client asks you to send him a core sentence, outline, and executive summary of the report that he can approve before authorizing you to write the complete report. As you learned in this Project, you write the executive summary after you have completed the report. However, for this exercise you will write the executive summary using the information given so that you can practice how to organize the information into its four components.

Follow the steps below to write a core sentence, outline, and executive summary for a comparative report.

1. Open the file Practice_09.docx located in the Project.09 folder included with your Data Files and then, to avoid altering the original file, save the document as Ever After Catering Report Organization in the same folder.

2. Read the following description of the report subject:

Ever After Catering specializes in taking care of all catering needs for weddings. The company is very successful and is now considering a partnership with one of two wedding planners. The first wedding planner is Giorgio Wedding Planner and the second wedding planner is Perfect on The Day. The report should compare the two companies in three areas: their current clientele, their products and services, and their financial situation.

3. In the space provided in the Ever After Catering Report Organization document, write an appropriate core sentence based on the above description. Remember to use the six-part format for a core sentence:

a. Subject (This report)

b. Verb (compares)

c. Object: Main topic of your report summarized in as few words as possible

d. Linking phrase: in terms of or with regard to

e. Number of main topics: Usually two, three, or four, followed by a colon

f. Main topics listed in the order in which they will appear in the completed report 4. Save the document and keep it open.

5. Start a new document in Word, save it as Ever After Catering Report Outline, and then switch to Outline view.

6. In Outline view, create an outline based on the three topics presented in the core sentence. Use the Promote and Demote buttons in Outline view to assign levels to each topic and subtopic. Make sure you assign Level 1 to the Introduction, the Conclusions and Recommendations, and the three main topics. You should then assign Level 2 to the subtopics, Level 3 to the sub-subtopics, and so on. You can choose to include up to four levels of subtopics, but you do not need to include four levels for each main topic.

7. In Outline view, adjust the page view so that all the outline levels appear in one screen.

8. Press the Prnt Scrn button to take a screen shot of the outline. The Prnt Scrn button is often located to the right of or above the function keys and could be called PrtScn or PrtSc.

9. Save and close the document, switch to the Ever After Catering Report Organization document, click below the paragraph on Outlining, and then press [Ctrl]+[V] to paste a copy of the screen shot. 10. Scroll to the Executive Summary heading, and then read the notes about the report for Ever After Catering.

11. In the space provided on page 3 of the document, write the Executive Summary based on the notes on page 2. Remember to organize the content presented in the notes into four sections as follows:

• Purpose of the report

• Reason for writing the report

• Methods of investigation (use a bulleted list, if you wish)

• Conclusions and recommendations 12. Use action verbs and the active voice wherever possible. Double-space the text of the executive summary.

13. Type your name where indicated in the footer, save the document, and then print a copy.