BASICS OF REPORT WRITING

1.1 Report Defined

Webster Comprehensive Dictionary (Encyclopedic Edition) defines a report as “an account of

any occurrence prepared after a thorough investigation.” An online definition on
Dictionary.com reads: A report is an account or statement describing in detail an event,
situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc.

In the context of an organization, a report is a permanent record of activities, events, or

occurrences used by leaders and managers as a basis in making administrative and
operational decisions. Within a public safety organization, such as police, fire and jail
services, a report is a written account of an incident and the inquiry or investigation of that
incident which aims to inform readers (who were not present in the incident) of the facts, and
to recommend appropriate and practicable measures for decision-makers to resolve the
subject inquiry. It is a crucial document upon which operational activities are anchored. From
it, police officers investigate, arrest lawbreakers, prosecute criminals, and hunt fugitives.
From it, fire officers launch information drives on fire prevention programs, and jail officers
revisit correction’s policies and security measures.

1.2 Uses of a Report

The following list shows some specific uses of a report in the public safety service:

1. Serves as Basis for Prosecution

A police report on an incident that contains the elements of a crime is the first document that a
prosecutor examines before he decides whether a charge shall be made or a case shall be submitted
for trial. If you are a police officer, having a complete and accurate record of an incident or a case will
be useful once you are called to testify in court. You cannot rely solely on memory, especially if you
will be called to testify a year after the incident, considering the pace of our justice system. The report
you have, if complete and accurate, will serve as your memory bank which will help you pass the
credibility test of a competent witness.

2. Serves as Source of Statistical Information

Reports are gathered to determine crime trends and provide statistical information on crime
incidents in a particular location in consideration of other variables such as population, income class,
and standard of living. Crime statistics become the basis of police operational decisions. It is also
used to determine which public safety programs shall be given priority allocations in terms of fund and
logistical support. For the fire service, statistics on fire incidents become the basis in crafting fire
safety and prevention programs as well as in allocating organizational resources.

3. Serves as Reference for Development of Operational Strategies, Policy Changes and Training
Program Formulation

Reports are reliable tools in management’s decisions to institute tactical changes, update
policies, and enforce more stringent rules relevant to the public safety officer’s job. They also reflect
operational strengths and weaknesses which serve as basis in preparing training programs to learn
new competencies and enhance existing skills, whether in complex operational procedures such as
hostage and negotiation skills, firefighting in high-rise structures, management of rowdy inmates or as
simple as field note taking and data gathering. For example, if a report reveals that a responding team
has failed to capture a fugitive who has escaped to the mountains, the ground commander may
decide to change the composition of his team and replace the ones skilled in urban operations with
those who are familiar with the local terrain where the fugitive fled.

4. Source of Stories by Newspapers and Media

Reports, particularly police reports are an important source of news stories for media men vying
to grab tomorrow’s headlines. Accidents, shooting incidents, robbery, kidnapping, grizzly crimes,
destructive fires - these are the staples of everyday news on TV, radio, internet, and print media.
Documentation of these incidents is the role of a public safety officer.

5. Basis for Performance Evaluation

On a professional note, a public safety officer will be judged by his superiors by the quality of
his submitted reports. It is not all the time that superiors will be with officers as they perform their job,
especially if in the field or special operations missions. It is only through reports that superiors will
know the officer’s activities, skills, and decisions. Being able to articulate well what an officer has done
will contribute to a positive appraisal of his performance. This will also save the time of the superiors
from needless corrections in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

1.3 Who Will Read Your Report?

Your organization does not operate in a vacuum or solitary confinement. Actions and decisions
that it makes will certainly affect others, just as the actions and decisions that others make will have
an impact on your organization. Someone has once said: “No man is an island.”

Writing reports is a typical example of this relationship. Written police report affects the tasks of
both private and public organizations such as insurance companies and the National Prosecution
Service.

Figure No. 1 shows where your report goes and who its possible readers are. The usual route
and possible route of your report are identified.

1. Officer on Patrol
As illustrated in Figure No.1, the report starts with the officer patrolling or responding
to an incident. He or she normally takes down the details of the event or occurrence at the
time of his or her response to the incident. The prewriting process begins at this point. The
responding officer jots down the important facts and identifies the persons involved and
witnesses (who), the type of incident that occurred (what), the date and time the incident
occurred (when), the location of the incident (where), and the conditions or circumstances that
precipitated or triggered the incident to happen (how and why).

2. Report Writer
Normally, the responding or patrolling officer who takes down notes on a particular
incident is the same person who writes the corresponding report of the incident. However, this
is not usually the case in the Philippines. The patrolling or responding officer hands over the
information he gathered to another public safety officer who takes charge of writing the report.
This person takes the place of an investigator or the case officer-in-charge.
Oftentimes, incomplete and inaccurate reporting occurs when the information is not
captured and relayed by the responding officer to the case officer-in-charge. In cases when
either the responding officer or the case officer-in-charge becomes tired or lazy to do the pre-
writing process, the probability of committing errors or blunders in writing the report is high. It
is therefore important to follow carefully the pre-writing process by using the recommended
templates, keeping the templates safe and secure, and re-visiting them during the time of
drafting or writing the report to ensure its accuracy and completeness.

3. Immediate Superior
After writing the draft report, the Section or Division Chief reviews it before it goes to
the station’s Chief of Police for his review and signature. In some cases, the Chief of Police,
 owing to hectic schedules, signs the written report in haste without verifying or ascertaining
the contents of the report. The trust, therefore, reposed by the Chief of Police to his
subordinate who writes reports with his name and signature on it, is something that any
subordinate should not break. As in other organizations, a superior expects that the report '
submitted by his subordinates is error-free and can stand microscopic scrutiny.

4. Station Chief
The Chief of Police is where the buck stops. The moment a subordinate submits his
or her report to the Chief of Police or any superior for that er, the report belongs to the Chief
of Police and no longer belongs to the subordinate who wrote it. The Chief of Police assumes
all the responsibilities from the time he or she scribbles his signature in the final report.

5. Department Level
In cases where the incident is of national interest or when cases are viewed as
sensational, scandalous, appalling or shocking to the general public sensitivities, the Chief of
Police’s report may go immediately to the immediate superior officer such as the Provincial
Director up to the Regional Director and the Secretary of the Department of the Interior
Government. Similarly, when incidents of national magnitude catch the attention of the Chief
Executive, who is the President, the report becomes the basis for such information required
by the Office of the President.

6. Congress
When a sensational crime hooks the attention of the general public and such atrocity
or outrage is judged by influential groups such as religious and business associations, the
police report is summoned by Oversight Committees of both houses of Congress. The police
report even reaches the plenary sessions of the Philippine Congress. Examples of these
crime incidents that happened in the Philippines that have reached the attention of
congressional inquiries were the celebrated Kuratong Baleleng multiple murder cases in May
1995 and the Luneta Hostage-Taking Crisis in August 2010.
It is elementary for superior officers to ensure that he or she has the best writers in
the organization to make his work easier. On the contrary, the worst work environment that
can weigh down a superior is when he employs people in is a team who cannot express
themselves either in writing or speaking. This is at all times true to the police force because
for every police action, there is always; corresponding report writing reaction.

7. National Prosecution Service

In the diagram, the next usual route of the written police report is the National
Prosecution Service of the Department of Justice. In criminal cases, for example, the
Prosecutor or sometimes referred to as Fiscal evaluates the written police report submitted to
him for an inquest and preliminary investigation. Based on the report, the Prosecutor decides
whether or not there is probable cause that engenders the filing of a criminal information
against the respondent or accused. If the police report is flawed, disorganized, or does not
have sufficient evidence to support its allegations that would establish a probable cause, the
possibility that the prosecutor elevates the case for trial becomes nil.
The most that he (prosecutor) can do ls to disregard the report and call a request for
further re-investigation of the instant case.

8. Courts of Justice
If however a case is filed in any court of law, the police written report is attached as a
vital document supporting the allegations submitted before the Department of Justice and the
courts for trial. The police written reports are important documents attached to any complaint,
pleading, or proceeding in any court of competent jurisdiction. The police report vividly
narrates the incidents and persons involved, explains the evidence gathered during the
investigation, and sufficiently contains the circumstances and conclusions following deductive
and inductive reasoning during the conduct of police surveillance and investigations. The
same report goes all the way to all appellate courts such as the Court of Appeals, and the
Supreme Court, where cases are filed on appeal.

9. Prosecution and Defense Counsels

 The same police written reports are also given to counsels for the prosecution and
defense when both the complainant and the respondent engage the services of counsels at
the time the complaint is lodged before any judicial body.

10. Media
In the Philippines, you can observe media personnel, journalists, or TV reporters
frequent police stations purposely to get stories worthy of tomorrow’s headlines. Philippine
realities indicate that the more sensational the news is, the greater the appetite for media
persons to cover it. You might even be surprised that before your report reaches the Regional
Director, the report is already in the hands of newsmen, and tomorrow’s news coverage
includes the incident report you have filed.
In a republican form of government, media and TV personalities are not barred from
reporting any news worth its salt, whether or not it benefits the source. The Philippine
Constitution guarantees citizens’ freedom of expression, which includes the inherent right to
gather information and publish that information in any form unless of course curtailed by
competent government authorities for reasons of national interest or violation of other existing
laws. No matter how morbid the story is, the reporter writes his piece, which is usually based
on the written reports submitted by police officers assigned in the field.

11. Public and Private Agencies

The public safety officer’s report goes to individuals and private companies for legal
purposes such as insurance claims (for vehicular accidents), filing of personal claims
(SSS/GSIS), crime incidents involving foreign or alien residents (Embassy), Filing of
complaints involving children and female trafficking (DSWD) and other crime incidents you
can name of.
By and large, good report writing must not be taken lightly nor ignored by any public
safety officer. The police report is a public document, which is very important for public
consumption. Accordingly, false or inaccurate reporting shall have damaging consequences
as the public opinion formed out of the inaccurate information will, expectedly, yield biased
opinion, or bigotry.
As a public safety officer, whether assigned in the central government‘s national
police or the fire bureau or jail bureau, you have to ensure that your written communication
has the qualities and standards of a good report. As a government representative, you owe it
to the people, whom you have sworn to serve, to write good reports.
As an officer, the ability to write good reports is a requirement. Taking on leadership
positions without the skill of good report writing is almost pointless because effective
leadership means the ability to lead and articulate the vision and direction for followers to
abide by loyalty, sacrifice, and commitment. Stories of heroism and great leadership point to
one conclusion: Great leaders are effective communicators. They speak with authority and
write with power.
Now that you have learned the uses of your report, its implications to the public and
possible repercussions on your future career as a public safety officer, you must strive to
learn the skill in writing reports. With the help of this module or by self-directed learning
(through reading books and studying examples of well-written reports), report writing will be
an easy and natural part of your life as a future law enforcer.
As in other skills, you cannot acquire good writing skills without learning. Learning, on
the other hand, is a product of an attitude more than anything else. Your willingness to learn
has more weight than unused talent, training hours spent, or school attendance. In other
words, acquiring writing skills oftentimes has nothing to do with faith, talent or training. But it
has everything to do with a willing attitude to learn.
 Shown in Figure No. 2 is the report writing process. You start with prewriting which
consists of data gathering, recording of facts and organizing these facts; followed by writing
the draft, then evaluating or editing both for content and form; and finally, after cleaning up
your draft, finalizing and submitting.

In the order of importance, pre-writing stage is the most critical part of the writing
process. Yet, it is the stage where most amateur writers neglect the most, believing that they
can write whatever ideas come to mind and put them on paper and organize later.

A good report largely depends on the pre-writing process. Without the complete data
or record of facts, and without using your skill in organizing those data or facts, either in
chronological or sequential order or in order of significance, it is difficult to write good reports.

It is strongly recommended that templates or other similar formats be used as a

starting point for the pre-writing process. Through the use of templates, writers will not rely
solely on their memory of what transpired nor depend on unreadable notes that are usually
done from hasty scribbles during the conduct of investigation or operations. Someone may
have said: “A faintest crawl is better than a sharp memory." A complete and organized
recording of facts, however, is a step closer to producing quality reports.

Pre-Writing

Pre-writing refers to any activity that a writer engages in before the actual writing of
the draft. In a writing class, activities under this category include brainstorming or generating
ideas. In public safety report writing, this is represented by the acronym GRO which stands
for Gathering, Recording, and Organizing Facts.
In the pre-writing stage, it is recommended to use templates to aid you in writing your
formal reports. These forms have pre-designed fields for the five W’s and 1 H where all you
have to do is check or mark appropriate answers. These templates are designed to save you
time from crafting new sets of questions every time there is an incident to report. Likewise,
they sort out salient information making it easier for you to write the report in the official
memorandum format than to write the same from disorganized notes or worse, from memory.
Gathering of Facts

Before writing your report, you need to be sure that you have the facts. By facts, we
mean the details of the incident or account as they happened and not as they are told by one
who was not present at the scene of the incident. Hearsays and rumors are not facts, and
neither are opinions. Various ways to gather facts include field interviews of victims and
witnesses at the scene of the incident, background investigation of suspects, and surveillance
operation.

Recording and Organizing

Parallel to the gathering of facts is data recording. For police report writing, you can
refer to the attached documents for pre-writing templates on offenses against persons,
offenses against properties, vehicular accidents, and complaints or incidents, which may be
useful in writing spot reports or other official reports following the memorandum format. The
templates, as explained earlier, serve as essential tools in recording and organizing
information.

Writing and Evaluating shall be expounded in separate subtopics of this module.

Briefly though, with the filled-out templates, the writing stage will no longer be as laborious or
painstaking as when there is no organized baseline data gathered in the pre-writing stage.
Evaluating, on the other hand, is the stage in the writing process where you take a closer look
at the written work both in content and form. Content evaluation or editing is checking whether
the report has the qualities of good writing such as accuracy, clarity, conciseness, objectivity,
and completeness. This is also the stage where you add, remove, replace, or rearrange
words or phrases to exemplify these qualities and produce a report well worth reading. On the
other hand, evaluating the form or proofreading focuses on the correct use of grammar,
sentence structure, punctuations, capitalization, abbreviations, numbers, and spelling.