Remember this the next time you get lost somewhere in the middle of a report. If the writer hasn’t stated her main point up front, you won’t keep reading. If the early pages are a morass of statistical tables and lists of examples, you’ll give up. And if there’s an entire chapter called ‘Background’, you’ll be sure to skip it. Why? Because when you’re reading for business, you demand the answer first.
Always write in a top-down manner. Communicate your main idea and themes first, and then present your more detailed evidence and sub-themes.