Writing and Reporting
The paramount skill that a Private Investigator must have is the ability to write concisely. The client will be a lawyer or university educated professional. The client only sees the report. The client judges the Investigator by the quality of the report. Good reports mean more work in the future.
Writing good reports is not just a matter of putting words together. The ability to properly produce an uncluttered document using word processing software is an essential part of this skill. Understanding how to cite sources, create footnotes and end notes, and order appendices is necessary to create readable reports. If your report is not equal to those produced by the large consulting firms, then you are losing business.
For the junior Investigator, I always recommend a thorough study of the following:
- Zinsser’s [asa link]0060891548[/asa]
- Cook’s [asa link]0395393914[/asa]
- Barzuns, [asa link]0060937238[/asa]
- and these books in Writing is Hard Work
- and The Job’s Not Done Until The Paperwork Is Finished which is about the content of investigation files
It will probably take you a year to get through these and have a good start in applying the lessons these books should be teaching you.
MS Word
If you do not know how to use MS Word effectively, then find a course on creating style sheets, templates, and using the features that create references. MS Word is your most basic tool. I will deal with MS Office in a future article, but in the meantime, you have homework. Learn how to create the following:
- a template with hierarchical headings and
- proper paragraphs that insert spaces before and after paragraphs and
- also learn how to make a Table of Contents and footnotes.
>>then you are loosing business
Ahem, that should read “losing business”
loosing
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
loosed; loos·ing
Date:
13th century
transitive verb1 a: to let loose : release b: to free from restraint2: to make loose : untie 3: to cast loose : detach4: to let fly : discharge5: to make less rigid, tight, or strict : relaxintransitive verb: to let fly a missile (as an arrow) : fire
losing
Function:
adjective
Date:
1519
1 : resulting in or likely to result in defeat 2 : marked by many losses or more losses than wins
You should also correct the mispellings in your blog post if you wish to present yourself as a “mentor”. You LOSE business, not LOOSE it.
Ah, the dangers of proofreading your own copy. Thanks for noticing.
Yep, that seems to be a very common mistake. Similar to mis-typing they’re and their. I find myself doing that sometimes.
In proofreading my own work I often miss form/from with/wit us/use and loose/lose, especially if I write it then immediately proofread it. The one-letter-different stuff is where I usually screw-up.
You can always read your writing aloud, as if you were reading it to another person. You’ll hit 99.9% of your mistakes when you read it aloud word for word.