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Business Letters | Memos | Job Applications and Résumés | Incident Reports | Progress Reports | Formal Reports
| For many people, taking
care of business requires writing brief reports about significant incidents
or progress made on projects. Everyone has filed incident reports. Your first
may have been about the disgusting things your baby brother was putting in
his mouth while he sat in his infant seat at that picnic at the beach. Later,
your mom may have asked you to verbally report on interesting happenings at
kindergarten. Such reporting starts with the urge or need to communicate
something about what you've experienced.
Creating the Content of an Incident Report To
report, follow this procedure adapted from Blicq and Moretto. Begin by
thinking, "I want to send a message (Which communication medium will I
use? Written? Oral?) to ______ (Who is my audience?) saying _______ (How can
I summarize my main message?). Then provide additional information to support
your message.
Kim
Chan, a caseworker in a sheltered workshop for clients with intellectual
deficits, has to write an incident report. One of his clients, Pat Cummings,
a thirty-year-old man with Down Syndrome, has been counselled several times
about inappropriately touching another workshop participant, Samantha Steele.
As he hugs Samantha, Pat shouts "I love you, Sam. You're my
girlfriend." Samantha says, "Don't touch me. I don't like it when
you hug me." She has complained to staff every time Pat has thrown his
arms around her. At his last counselling session, Pat agreed that if he chose
again to hug anyone, he would be choosing to stay at home and miss workshop
for two weeks. As part of suspending Pat, Kim must write an incident report.
Kim's employer requires brief written reports about any
incidents like this. He knows his audience is the Executive Director. Now Kim
must decide how much information to include in the report and how to set a
businesslike tone.
As Kim thinks about the content of his message he is
imagining his reader and thinking about his main message. How can he
summarize that message? What is the most important point he must make to the
director? Blicq and Moretto suggest finding that message by completing the
hidden words at the front of most first sentences in reports: I want to tell
you that . . . "because Pat Cummings has persisted in hugging another
client against her will, he must be excluded from the sheltered workshop for
the next two weeks." Kim has begun to create the content of his incident
report. (He won't include the hidden words in his first sentence.)
In the body of the report, Kim must write the details that
support his main message. He needs to ask: What does my reader need to know?
Certainly the director needs to know some of the events that led up to the
incident, the background to the incident. She will also want Kim to describe the
incident. (Kim chose to write a chronological narrative of what happened.)
Finally, Kim needs to tell how the staff responded to the event, the outcome
of the incident.
Organizing an Incident Report Most
readers of business reports appreciate brevity, so present the most important
information in the first sentence. The first paragraphs may be a single
sentence. Most incident reports need only two sections: Figure 1: Example of an Incident Report Creating a Professional Appearance for the Brief
Report Choose the
most effective format for a brief report. If you are writing to a business
colleague, you may send a memo to report an incident. Many organizations make
it easier to file an incident report by requiring employees to complete a
form, often electronic. Figure 1 shows the incident-report form used by
employees of Shelter Workshop. Case workers would send a business letter to
report an incident to a parent or guardian. (Figure 2 shows an example of an
incident reported in a letter.) To ensure your incident report looks
professional, study the conventions for the type of document you send. Figure 2: Example of an Incident Report in Letter
Format Activity 1: Practice Writing an Incident Report You are
a caseworker at Haven Group Home, a group home for young offenders. Residents
are forbidden to possess drugs, including alcohol. Curfew is midnight. Youth
who do not observe the house rules of this open custody facility are
transferred to Haven Residence, a more secure setting. Sherry Lynn rings the
front door bell at 5:00 a.m., obviously intoxicated, and you find that she is
carrying a bag of marijuana. She does not rise to attend school; school
attendance is another requirement of the home. When she gets up later in the
day, she refuses to discuss her behaviour with her counsellor. This is the
third time in a month that she has stayed out all night and arrived back
drunk. Some Concluding
Thoughts "Incident Reports" summarizes
widely held ideas about how to report important events in the workplace. As
always, though, you'll have to carefully analyze the audience in your
workplace. Your supervisor, your reader, may provide guidelines for incident
reports. If you don't receive such guidelines, ask to see exemplary reports.
That way you'll write reports that meet your audience's need for information
and respect. Copyright ©2002 Pearson
Education Canada |
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