Writing an (Eyewitness)Incident Report

   

    Let us hope you never have to write an incident report about real events. Incident reports mean drama- something happened, someone needs to know and somehow, you are right in the middle. You are in the middle because you happened to have been there when the incident happened. Whether you were involved n the incident or not is mostly irrelevant. What matters is that you are an eyewitness to the incident and therefore, the perfect person to tell what happened. 

 

 The purpose of writing an incident report is to provide facts about a particular occurrence usually to someone in authority. So, maybe the principal needs to know what happened, or the dean of discipline, maybe its the police. Whomever it is that you are writing to, they weren't there when it happened, you were, and now you need to inform them so they can help fix the situation. 

Drama comes from the Greek word, 'dran' which means 'action'. Now what is the action that you must write a report on? It may be burglary, vandalism, a fight, or even an accident. In the classroom, we imagine that we witnessed one of these and write of the events exactly as they 'happened'.

At this point, you may be thinking, 'This sounds easy'. It is. you simply need to know what format to use and what to include. I'll tell you.


 If you are asked to write a report about an incident which happened in your school or workplace to someone else in that same school or workplace such as a supervisor, you use the memorandum format, 'memo' for short. If you must write to anyone else outside of your organization like a Justice of the Peace or a member of the police force, you used the business letter format to how greater formality. Google has lost of samples of both formats so definitely look them up, or ask your instructor for more specific guidance related to the two formats.

 

Now, let us think about the content or body of your report. I recommend dividing your report into 3 paragraphs using the 5W's and making recommendations.

 

The 5W's are what, who, where, when and how. I bet you thought I was going to say why, but no. why is not considered one of the 5W's because it leads the writer to include opinions and since this task requires all factual information, there is no room for opinions when describing an incident. You are simply to tell how the incident unfolded, not who's at fault- even if you are sure who is at fault.

 

The first four w's fits nicely into the first paragraph. Here you, tell a summary of what happened, usually a single sentence. You also state the approximate or specific time of the incident, the actual location and the names of the persons involved. If, for any reason, you do not know their names, be as specific as possible when you give them titles in place of names.

 

In the second paragraph, give a detailed description of how the incident happened, exactly as it happened. Remember to remain objective, even if you know who is at fault. It is important also that your realize that this entire report must be written in past tense since the incident which you are writing about has already happened.

 


The final paragraph has two parts- short term recommendations and long-term recommendations. For short term recommendations, you will suggest what will remedy that exact incident that you are reporting. Long term recommendations are those that you think would help prevent such incidents from happening again.

Once you have exhausted the 5W's and made your recommendation you may consider your report finished. Don't forget your closing remark and signatory if you had used the letter format.

 

Comment below to let me know what you think about this article and suggest what I should cover next.

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