Get It All & Get It Right by MAJ Carl Lawrence It's been six months since you arrested

Joe Punk. You remember that it w as a good, clean case and you expect him to get the maximum, especially since he has a long record. However the prosecutor plea-bargains. What went wrong, you ask yourself. Could it be something you did? Or may be something you failed to do? You think back to your report. Although you wrote it in a hurry, the ser geant should have picked up any problems. After all, that's her job, right? Wron g! It's your job to make sure your report is thorough, accurate and profess ional. Keep in mind that you are communicating to a wide audience. If the case g oes to a jury trial, you can bet the defense attorney will be interested in what your report says. There are 24 ears in the jury box that want to hear what happ ened and if it's not in your report, the defendant certainly isn't going to volu nteer anything to back you up. Everyone knows you are not going to do everything on this list, but you get the idea. If you are not following this pattern in your reports, consider ad opting it as a simplified approach to organization. If you follow this pattern i n your field notes, writing your report will be just a matter of making a final draft. Any additional details you remember can be added to your field notes and inserted in the proper place in your report. Time segments also make good paragr aph divisions. Breaking up your report into logical groupings based on time make s the report easier to read and understand. Look at reports you have written in the past. Do they jump around from o ne place to another, one period of time to another or just run on and on? This j umping around causes problems for your readers, forcing them to sort out what ha ppened when. The easier it is for your reader to follow your train of thought, t he better evidence your report will be in court. Sentence Length Another way to quickly improve your writing is to use short, active, com plete sentences that communicate details in easily readable chunks. If a sentenc e has more than 10 to 15 words, it's probably too long. Shorter sentences are easy to follow. That may not be what your English teacher told you, but remember that you want to communicate one main idea at a t ime. Readers can understand and remember more readily when you use short sentenc es, whereas long sentences often contain more than one main idea, or have severa l dependent ideas, and can be difficult to follow, understand and remember (just like this sentence). Keep it Simple Next, for most of the report writing you will do, learn to use a simple subject-verb pattern, write in the active voice, and use past tense. Sound like English class? "Subject-verb pattern" means the person doing something is the actor or subject in the sentence and the verb (or verb phrase) tells what they did. For example: "I saw broken glass on the floor." The word "I" is the subject and "saw

" tells what "I" did. This pattern is direct, simple and forceful. It tells what happened in t he simplest way possible. This is not to say that all your sentences have to be short and choppy, like little bursts of machinegun fire. "I saw, as I walked toward the parked car, that the right rear fender ha d been damaged," is a more complex sentence, but it uses the subject-verb patter n and is also direct and forceful. Make the Subject Perform the Action "Active voice" is the form of the verb used when the subject performs th e action; passive voice is the form of the verb used when the subject receives t he action. Compare these two sentences: "Officer. Jones found six .38 caliber cartridges under the seat, Six .38 caliber cartridges were found under the seat. and

The first sentence is more effective because it is active: It tells who found what, where. Making the subject of the sentence perform the action gives t he sentence more punch and demands attention. And six months later you don t have to guess who found the cartridges. Keep the Past in the Past Tense "Tense," as used here, means the time frame in which something happened or is ha ppening. The verb in the sentence indicates when something happened. Since your report is written after the incident has occurred, you should use past tense ver bs. So what's a past tense verb? Most of the time they end in -ed, but some verbs, such as 'drive," "tell," and "go," change their spelling to indicate that the action took place in the past. As you already know, "drive" becomes "drove, " "tell" becomes "told" and "go" becomes "went." Often people will naturally speak in the past tense, but will have certa in phrases they use habitually that are incorrect. Look for such errors as "I se en," we been," "I says," or "he goes." If you normally use one or more of these p hrases in conversation, they may be sneaking into your reports. Once you identif y this kind of problem, you will be well on your way to correcting it. The words "seen" and "been," as used here, need a "helper" such as "have" or "had." For example, instead of writing "I seen the suspect in the camera store, " you should write: "I saw the suspect" when you use past tense or, "I had seen the suspect in the store (at some earlier time). "I says" and "he goes" simply b ecome "I said" and "he went." With some practice, you will be able to spot this error easily in report s and even in conversation. Another problem with verbs can occur when using what is called the emphat ic form." Some officers, when writing their reports, feel it is necessary to put m ore emphasis on what they did or what happened by writing "I did go" or The suspe ct did state" when all they really need to say is "I went" or "The suspect state d." Staying with the past tense eliminates the awkward and clumsy use of unneces sary emphasis.

Show, Don't Tell A short sentence you should remember is: " SHOW, DON'T TELL"

You want to show the reader, not tell them, what happened. When you show , the reader draws his own conclusions from a picture you have drawn in his mind . Study some of the reports. Do the words show what happened? For example, when you need to use your words to establish probable cause or reasonable suspicion, think of your reader s mind as a video screen. It s your j ob to write a script for the actions that will play out on that screen. If you say, "I pulled the driver over because he appeared intoxicated," you are telling the reader why you did what you did. Compare that statement with this: "I saw the Red Ford Taurus weave over the center line twice in the space of a half block. The car struck the curb at t he corner of Elm Street and Maple Avenue while attempting to turn right onto Map le Avenue." Can you see the difference? The additional details help your reader form a picture in his mind as he watches the driver attempting to control the car. What conclusion can the reade r arrive at? That the driver has some kind of problem. And that will be the conclusion of mos t other readers, too. Your words will have shown any intelligent layperson your probable cause or reasonable suspicion for making a traffic stop. When you read the reports you have on hand, do you get a mental image of what happened from each one? If not, figure out why and try revising them. Ask yourself questions as you revise: "What details do I need here to make this a better picture? What should the writer have included that would strengthen this report?" A Final Check Finally, go over your report carefully to correct any small errors. Care lessness can be as detrimental to credibility as leaving out important informati on. Be on the lookout for words that are misspelled or where you have dropped en dings, like leaving -ed or -en or - ing off words. Effective communication is a serious law enforcement problem. Simple err ors, if you don't take the time to correct them, detract from your professional image as surely as any other sloppy habit, like dirty uniforms and equipment, or inappropriate behavior. It is annoying and distracting to your report readers t o have to sort through a mess to find the essential information. Following these suggestions for self-improvement is an easy way to impro ve your writing. Keep safe.