An observation says what you found or what is true now. A suggestion says what should be done next. Keeping them apart helps the reader trust your facts and judge your recommendations separately.
This skill appears in reports, proposals and any extended response that ends with advice. It follows naturally from grouping findings under a useful structure.
How can you tell them apart?
Observations describe. They usually use the present or past tense and contain facts, numbers or things people said: “Eleven of the 24 students said the queue takes more than 15 minutes.”
Suggestions recommend. They usually use modal verbs or recommending phrases: should, could, would be helpful if, I recommend, it would be worth. “The canteen could open a second payment counter.”
A quick test: can the sentence be checked by looking or asking? Then it is an observation. If it depends on a choice someone has to make, it is a suggestion.
How to keep them apart, step by step
- Underline the facts in your notes: what happened, how many, who said it.
- Underline the ideas for change: what might solve the problem.
- Write the observations first in each section, with numbers or examples.
- Write the suggestion after the observation, linked by a phrase such as As a result or To deal with this.
- Check the verbs. Observations rarely need should. Suggestions rarely need exact numbers.
- Cut judgement words from observations, such as terrible or ridiculous. Let the facts speak.
Worked example
Notes for a report on the school bus service: the bus arrives at 7.20 and school starts at 7.30.
Nine of 20 students said they miss the start of assembly. Adding a second bus might help, and a later start for Form 4 could be tried.
Step 1, facts: bus arrives 7.20; school starts 7.30; nine of 20 miss assembly.
Step 2, ideas: second bus; later start for Form 4.
Steps 3 and 4, draft:
Findings. The bus reaches school at 7.20, ten minutes before assembly begins. Nine of the 20 students interviewed said they often miss the start of assembly.
Recommendations. To deal with this, the school could add a second bus that arrives at 7.05 a.m. Alternatively, it may be worth trying a later assembly for Form 4.
Step 5, check: the findings have numbers and no should. The recommendations use could and may be worth and link back to the problem with To deal with this.
Step 6, judgement words: none needed.
The mistake to watch for
A common slip is to hide a suggestion inside a finding, so that opinion looks like fact.
Mistaken finding: The bus service is terrible, so the school must buy new buses immediately.
“Terrible” is an opinion and “must buy” is a recommendation, both written as if they were facts.
The correction is to split the sentence: state what happened, then recommend separately. “The bus reaches school at 7.20 a.m., and nine of 20 students said they miss assembly. The school could ask the bus company about a second, earlier bus.” The writing revision compare view makes it easy to see the two versions side by side.
Check yourself
1. Label each sentence as an observation (O) or suggestion (S): (a) “Six students said the notice board is hard to read.” (b) “The school should print larger notices.”
Show answer
(a) is O: it reports what students said. (b) is S: it recommends an action using should.
2. Rewrite as two sentences, one observation and one suggestion: “The noisy canteen is awful, so it must be made quieter.”
Show answer
One possible answer: “Seven of the 15 students interviewed said the canteen is too noisy to hold a conversation. The school could place soft notices or cloth panels on the walls to reduce the echo.” The opinion word awful is replaced by a report of what students said.
3. Why should the observation come before the suggestion in a section?
Show answer
The suggestion is only convincing if the reader has already seen the problem. Putting the evidence first lets the recommendation answer a need the reader has just understood.
Where this leads next
With facts and suggestions separated, the next step is to make each point convincing, in develop a point with a reason and example. The reports practice set then mixes all the skills together.
If you can spot the difference in other people’s writing but not in your own, a teacher can read your draft with you and mark each sentence. That is what online one-to-one English as a Second Language tuition gives you, with your own report as the example.