Executive SummaryAn Executive Summary is a
Executive Summary
An Executive Summary is a separate document from the main body of your document and must
stand alone on its merits. It may be the only page from your report that gets read by top
management -- so it must be able to "make the case" for your recommendation or proposal. The
Executive Summary:
1. Summarizes the main points of a longer document (e.g., a business plan or proposal) and
presents the essential issues in the paper: main points, analysis and recommendations. It is NOT
an introduction, which would tell what you intend to analyze, not what you found from your
analysis. If you are writing “this paper will....," then you are writing an introduction and not an
executive summary!
2. Establishes the need or states the problem; recommends the solution and explains the value of
the solution (why the reader should care); provides logical substantiation (your analysis!) for
how you arrived at your recommendation.
3. Is written in text, not a bullet-point outline (quality of analyses cannot be shown through bullet
points, which lack integrative logical connections among the bullet pointed ideas or data)
4. Should be one page or at most two pages for longer documents. No cut-and-pasting from the
main document. Write from scratch so you are not tempted to provide unnecessary details.
Always proofread the executive summary -- Ask people who haven't read the main document to
read the summary and comment on it -- does it present the idea? Does it show the value? Does it
"make the case" for your recommendation or proposal through clear logic based on sound data?
If you wish to explore further, this link is a sample of best resources for how to write a top-notch
Executive summary:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/summary.html
