A stress report is a legal and engineering record that a structure is adequate. It has to convince a reviewer who was not in your head — which makes structure and traceability more important than clever analysis.
What a report has to contain
In order: scope and configuration (exactly which part, which drawing revision), applicable documents, material allowables with their source, load cases and where they came from, the analysis itself, and a summary of margins. A reader should be able to find the worst margin in the document in under a minute — put the summary table near the front, not buried at the back.
Load cases and factors
State the limit loads, the factors applied, and the resulting ultimate loads explicitly. Aerospace convention is 1.5 ultimate and 1.0–1.25 yield; add fitting factors, casting factors and thermal cases where they apply. Every load case needs a source — a load document, a customer ICD, a vibration spec — never "engineering estimate" without justification.
Margins of safety, stated properly
Report MS = allowable / (applied × FS) − 1 for each failure mode, not just the worst one — bearing, net section, shear-out, buckling and fastener modes all get their own line (the lug and margin tools do this). A negative margin is a finding, not something to hide; note it and state the corrective action. Round down, and never report a margin more precisely than your inputs justify.
Traceability is the real deliverable
Every number needs a source: allowable from MMPDS table X, geometry from drawing Y rev Z, load from document W. Hand calculations should be reproducible; FE results need the model, mesh, boundary conditions and a hand-calculation sanity check (see FEA pitfalls). If a reviewer cannot reproduce your worst margin from the report alone, the report is not finished.