NCJ Number
192688
Date Published
2001
Length
92 pages
Annotation
This document examines a broad range of police report writing problems that have been identified as the greatest cause of confusing police reports.
Abstract
Report Writing Essentials meets and exceeds all performance objectives for police report writing prescribed by the California Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training for the basic academy course. The document presents each topic in a step-by-step format, followed by a practice exercise. It also includes examples of poor and good police reports, a glossary of grammar, punctuation, and other English composition terms (with examples), and a list of commonly misspelled words frequently found in public safety reports. The data are presented in eight chapters: (1) Nouns and Pronouns; (2) Verbs and Agreement; (3) Modifiers and Sentence Structure; (4) Punctuation; (5) Capitalization, Abbreviations, and Spelling; (6) Active Voice, Chronological Order, Word Choice; (7) Paragraphing, Jargon, Slang, Facts, Inferences, Opinions; and (8) The Process of Police Report Writing. Appendixes