When writing an investigative report, it can be broken down into several sections.
- The initial summary
- The conclusion
- Recommendations
- Main body of the report
I believe the initial summary is an extremely important part of any investigative report, and as it is the very nature of a summary to keep it brief, it leaves it open to being miscommunicated or interpreted. The summary needs to be clear and concise but can’t leave out key information that could lead the reader to misunderstand the writing. You can go into greater detail in the main body of the report, but you can not provide partial or fully forget key information from the summary and assume the reader will finish the report and get the remaining information from the main body.