Use Copilot in Word to draft a results section from your notes and tables

What This Does

A results section takes an hour of rewording because the same table gets described the same way on every project. Copilot in Word starts a draft from the outline and table you give it, so you edit instead of staring at a blank page. The draft describes what your table shows, in the words of your Comparison column. Every number in it gets checked against the table.

It writes no conclusion. Whether a result matters, and what the report says about it, belongs to your project manager and the licensed professional who signs the report.

Before You Start

• You have the report file open in Word. Microsoft's page lists Word for Microsoft 365, Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac and Word for iPad.
• Copilot is part of your Microsoft 365 license. Microsoft's page says that if you do not see Copilot, it may not be included with your subscription or may be turned off by your organization. Ask your IT group, or check Microsoft's plan page. No price or plan name appears in this guide.
• Your firm and the client have approved Copilot for this file, or the file holds only invented data. Draft reports, results tables and site names for client work stay in the firm's approved systems. If Copilot is not approved, practice on an outline built from the invented rows below. Then type or paste the text into the real report yourself.
• You have the results table with its Comparison column already computed in Excel. The spreadsheet did the comparing. Copilot does not.

Steps

1. Write your own outline first

Under a heading named Results, type a short outline in your own words and paste the results table. Include only facts you hold: which locations were sampled, on which dates, the screening value your project manager gave you, and the counts your spreadsheet produced. Mark anything missing with a bracket, such as [purge method].

2. Open Copilot in Word

Open the document. Then select the Copilot Dynamic Action Button in the corner of the document. Microsoft's page says Copilot opens in the chat pane with edit mode on. You can type a prompt, choose a suggested action or ask about your file. To keep Copilot from changing the document, select Chat only.

3. Ask for the draft

Paste this prompt:

Draft a Results section from the outline and the table in this document. Use only facts that appear in the outline or the table. Describe each location using the exact wording in the Comparison column. State the counts that appear in the outline and add no other numbers. Do not state a conclusion, a cause, a trend or whether any action is needed. Where a fact is missing, leave a bracket. Begin the draft with the line "Draft for project manager review".

Microsoft's page says you can keep, discard or refine the result with a follow-up prompt. Nothing needs to stay in the document until you have read it.

4. Check every sentence against the table

Read the draft one sentence at a time with the table beside it. Tick each number and each label. Delete any sentence that adds an explanation, a comparison to a past event or a recommendation. Copilot sometimes adds a closing line that sounds like a finding. Remove it.

5. Ask for an outside-the-draft check

In Chat only mode, ask Copilot to list each sentence of the draft with the table cell or outline line it came from, and to list sentences with no source. Treat that list as a lead. You still read each sentence against the table yourself, because the check comes from your eyes and the table, not from a second AI answer.

6. Hand the draft to your project manager

Keep the "Draft for project manager review" line until the project manager has read the section. Your project manager and the licensed professional decide what the section concludes.

Real Example

Scenario: An invented Results section for Site S-01 (invented), September 2026 groundwater event (invented), Analyte A (an invented analyte), results in ug/L. The screening value is 50 (an invented screening value, not a real standard).

What you type in the outline: "Five wells sampled, MW-1 and MW-2 on 2026-09-14, MW-3 to MW-5 on 2026-09-15. Table below. Counts from the spreadsheet: 2 Above SV, 2 At or below SV, 1 Not detected. Highest detected result 140 at MW-5. [Purge method]."

What you get: A draft along these lines.

You check it. Two plus two plus one is five wells. MW-2 at 68 and MW-5 at 140 are the two Above SV rows. MW-4 at 50 is At or below SV because 50 is not above 50. If the draft had said "conditions appear stable" or "no further action is needed", you would delete the sentence, because the table does not support it and it is a conclusion for the project manager.

Tips

• Put the table in the document before you ask, so Copilot has the numbers in front of it. Type the counts yourself from the spreadsheet rather than asking Copilot to count.
• Ask for brackets where a fact is missing. A bracket costs you ten seconds. An invented purge volume costs you a correction round.
• Use the same pattern for field methods text. Give Copilot your own bullet list of what was done, and cut every sentence that adds a step you did not list.
• Microsoft's page notes that Copilot supports fewer languages than Word does, so check your language if the draft looks off.

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for the Copilot icon or a similar AI option in the same area of the window.