Author Description

With its focus on organization, sentence and paragraph development, and content, this book shows law enforcement officers how to improve communication skills. Beginning with a chapter on communicating clearly through the proper application of diction and vocabulary, the guide goes on to discuss positive, negative and neutral diction, statements and opinions, vocabulary building, and avoiding bureaucratic language. An examination of paragraph structure and development follows with a point-by-point outline of measures necessary for preparing this basic unit of writing. Succeeding discussions review techniques and offer hints for communicating clearly in interdepartmental, intradepartmental, and external memos; explain proper research and organization of written communications, including outlining and revising; detail program design and grant proposal writing; and offer suggestions for writing applications, resumes, and cover letters. A final chapter analyzes the field report, its purpose, the importance of notetaking, and the organization and composition of the report. The text includes a revision checklist that can be used to improve any written document. An appendix presents five sample case reports. References are appended to the chapter on writing proposals and revising papers. Six bibliographic citations are given.