Reports

write an incident

What is a report?
A report is a putting together (compilation) of information on a subject or topic. It is an account
of an event, incident or problem. It is aimed at a particular audience and serves a specific
purpose
Purpose of a Report:
To present information on a subject or topic.
To recount an experience.
To present detailed information about an event, situation or incident.
Types of reports:
Newspaper reports
Information reports (statistics/surveys)
Eye-witness reports
Simple reports
General content:
Reports should be pieces of factual continuous writing
Should be about 250 words long, depending on the questions asked
Individual views and opinions are not to be included
If the information is in the form of a dialogue then reported speech MUST be used.
Newspaper report
This type of report covers many different types (genres) of writing. The practice of aiming
newspaper reports at particular groups is called slanting. This is where a person avoids putting so
much of a persons opinion in the report in order to avoid seeming biased. Instead, the focus is
on those aspects of events which will most interest the readers. The major features of a
newspaper report are:
It should contain facts
Written in the past tense and passive voice
It takes the fact that it has various groups of people as its audience into consideration.
Given concrete details in order to help readers to visualize an incident.
The Newspaper Report has a catchy phrase or title and a by-line this identifies the person
who wrote the article.
Commonly used words in a newspaper report are: alleged, said, reported, claimed, denied,
suspected reiterated confirmed, agreed, when contacted, refused.
Information reports (Statistics/Surveys)
When writing a report from a statistic or survey, it is necessary to notice tense. A trend is when
the reader/observe views information as a whole and searched for evidence of a general pattern.
The language that is used when writing a report of this nature is:
Increase goes up
Decrease goes down
Consistent follow a set pattern
Fluctuation not consistent; up and down
Adjectives to describe these 4 words are small minimal, steady, gradual sharp, significant, create
reasonable, fair.
Eyewitness report
This type of report presents what a person remembers as important during an incident (scene of
an accident/award ceremony etc)/therefore the report contains:
Facts
Please exclude:
Opinions
Impressions
Some questions that one would ask oneself when constructing an eye witness reports are:
Where did the incident occur?
When did the incident happen?
What important details do I need to mention?
Simple report
Used to report incidents that may affect another in one way or another
Usually not used for more than an audience of two or thee
Usually direct to a particular person
Used as reminders - in the form of a memorandum, to our peers or to others in a lower
position than ourselves.
The business letter format is used for more formal reports
This format is very informal and is only used for writing to persons of equal status or persons
of a lower position
May also be used when writing to a person of a higher status if instructed to do so. otherwse,
the business letter format is used
CXC KECTURE SERIES ENGLISH LANGUGAE