Not easy to do.

Twice a month I write a newsletter about police reports. If you think about that for, say, three seconds, you’ll soon realize that it is a near-impossible task. Twenty-four times a year I have to come up with a bunch of things to say about a very structured task that never changes. And I have to make it interesting enough for subscribers to read and (a less obvious but equally important task) for me to keep it going.

What do I find to say about police reports twice a month?

What I’ve been doing is to incorporate three features into every newsletter. One is a timely article about something going on in law enforcement right now. Since I’m a staff writer for a law enforcement website, I just repost those articles on my own newsletter.

Another feature is a short usage quiz. I enjoy doing those, and I keep a chart so that I don’t repeat a topic (-ed endings, lose/loose, coordinating conjunctions) too often.

The most challenging task is coming up with a PowerPoint or activity that goes into a writing issue in some depth. Yesterday’s choice was objectivity.

On one level that was no problem. I had a number of things to say that would be helpful to an officer who’s still learning how to write reports. I even had a couple of pointers that an experienced officer might benefit from.

But how would I make it INTERESTING?

I found a solution. Police reports have one counterintuitive feature: Officers aren’t allowed to showcase their experience or reasoning skills. They can’t discuss hunches, thinking processes, or conclusions. They can’t even say that a suspect seemed confused, dishonest, manipulative…you get the idea.

Just the facts, Ma’am.

And so I started my PowerPoint with a picture of a brain scan, pointing out that cops have highly developed thinking processes – which they can never refer to in a report.

You can view the PowerPoint at this link: http://www.slideshare.net/ballroom16/objectivity-in-police-reports