Chapter 10 addressed different types of formal reports. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. For this reason the agency is often called the “congressional watchdog”. These archived reports are available as portable document format (PDF) files. For this assignment, you will choose one report and provide a brief detail of your findings.
Part One: (This portion worth 15 points)
Visit the U.S. GAO website Reports and Testimonies page. (Accessed by clicking Reports and Testimonies link at the very top of the GAO homepage banner)
Under Narrow By Date (in the left-hand column) choose Past 6 Months to see reports from the last two quarters.
Under Browse By: (gray box at the top of the left-hand column) choose Topic.
Click on a business-related category that interests you. A list of sub-categories will then be displayed at the top of the screen to help you narrow the search, or you can scroll down through the articles until you find one that interests you.
Hover over the report title that interests you and click the blue arrows to see options for a Full Report or Highlights (one page summary of the full report).
Access both the Full Report and the Highlight page.
Provide a link to the Highlight page in the forum below. (have the link open in a new window – refer to the Orientation Moodle course Assignment 1.6 for help with this step)
Read the summary of the report (Highlight page) and write a paragraph describing the following:
Name of the report, date, and number of pages in the full report.
In your own words, briefly state why GAO performed this study, what GAO found, and what GAO recommends.
Describe what types of graphics, if any, were included to display the information.
Explain your overall thoughts on this article, and whether or not you agree with GAO’s recommendations.
