Question

In respect of investigation report, please explain how the report should be presented, particularly using who, where, how, when and why

Answer 1

the first thing is that when you are writing a report means you are persuading someone to do something. just like a short para or a mail-shot you also let the reader to go till end or your report and take action.

in this case the action is:to put your recommendations into practice

before your reader be persuaded he'll be understand everything that is written in report and for that tge language you guys gonna use should be SIMPLE CLEAR AND SPECIFIED

not every reader is an expert an only experts cannot restricted to read reports only. anyone can ,thus the language concern will be the first priority.

keep your report i.e self-explanatory

avoid jargon & pomposity

Keep It Active. Don’t say, “The man was bitten by the dog.” Say, “The dog bit the man

short takes also works good

get a second opinion

STRUCTURING THE REPORT

The other main thing which will help you write clear, pain-free, persuasive reports is following a clear and logical structure.

By this stage, you’ll have all the facts (or at least all the facts you’re going to get). You’ll understand the timeline and the sequence of events. You’ll have worked out your root cause analysis. And you’ll know what your recommendations are going to be.

So where do you start? You may have a company reporting form where you just fill in the blanks. In that case, fill them in.

Summary

The formal report and the news story are the only two human activities which start with the climax.

In this case, start with your summary of the incident. Keep it short, tight and clear.

Conclusions

Next, set out the conclusions you reached in your investigation.

Recommendations

Finally, lay out your main recommendations which will prevent this sort of thing happening again and which are, therefore, the whole point of the exercise.

and the turn for main report which outline everything in much more detail

SUMMARY

In the summary, you explain briefly:

- Who was involved in the incident

- What actually happened

- When it happened

- Where it happened and

- Who you are (and why you are investigating it)

CONCLUSIONS

In this section, you give a broad overview of WHY it happened. Summarise the immediate causes and the root causes and anything else you think is specifically relevant, but don’t go charging off into detail. That comes later.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In the Recommendations, you are simply answering the question, "What now?" You might recommend changing procedures, re-training someone, installing new equipment; whatever it may be. For the sake of clarity, we suggest you link your recommendations with the causes which prompted

them.

MAIN REPORT :- this is the body of report

1.aims& objectives

2. incident discription

3. method of investigation

4.finding... we find that our findings should be in top-set headings

T ime, Sequence and History

O rganisation / Control / Responsibility

P eople and their involvement

S imilar events

E nvironment and its effects

T echnology, equipment & processes

We’d suggest you use these as sub-headings, this'll help you so much.

5.recommendations

APPENDIX We would seriously suggest that you should attach, as an appendix, a clearly drawn root cause analysis chart.  

That’s all there is to it.

Follow this structure and much of the drudgery will be taken out of report-writing