STEPS IN REPORT WRITINGWhen you face a writing task, what do you hit the keyboard right away and
write from your memory or do you refer to your notes? ( if you have one, that is). Are you the type
whose words just flow like a spring of water from a sun-bathed brook, or are you the type who spends
endless stretches blankly staring at a computer monitor, inwardly praying for that first sentence to
finally set your mood, and miraculously turn you into the writer you hope to become? Do you consider
writing a laborious task? Other do, In fact, some may even prefer the mix of excitement and fear in a
street shootout to the dreariness and challenge of writing. An yet, little do they know that it is in writing
that they could recapture both the excitement and fear of performing their job. It is in documenting and
writing that could make them better public safety officers. Why? By revisiting the document, you will be
refreshed of the incident, of your response to the incident and of the insights you may have learned
from the situation. You will have time to reflect, to workup your skills which may have been wanting the
first-time, and to perform better the next time.Without question, different writing situations call for
different approached to writing. If you will write to your friends, you simply let the words gush out as if
you talking face to face with your friend-no grammatical rules to consider nor fear, whatsoever in
language signs. You know who you are communication with and you believe that your friend accepts
you, bad grammar and all. In a sense, you talk freely, oftentimes write loosely, yet are thoroughly
understood. Sometimes you wish this would also work in your professional life, and writing then can be
breeze. But the reality is that writing ( and especially report writing) entails effort. You need to go
through a process, and each step requires skill and commitment, to be able to arrive at the finished
product- a report that can withstand the discerning eye of people in and outside your organization- you
immediate supervisor, the prosecutor, and media men, among others.Shown in Figure No. 2 is the
report writing process, You start with pre-writing which consists of data gathering, recording of facts and
organizing these facts; followed by writing the draft, then evaluating or editing both the 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 writer 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 shown in the Appendices 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 don from hasty
scribbles during the conduct of investigations or operations. Someone may have said: Ä faintest crawl is
better than a sharp memory”. A complete and organized recording of facts, however, is a step closer to
producing quality report
