POLICECORRESPONDENCE

the writing of memoranda,police reports, and civilian letters.

CHARACTERISTICS OFEFFECTIVE POLICECORRESPONDENCE

1. Correctness.
No error, fault, mistake,or departure from truth. In order to avoiderror which may be
inadvertently done inspelling, punctuation, price, specification,sentence structure and
grammar amongothers, the correspondence should bethoroughly edited.

2. Conciseness.
Brief or limited in words. Weshould always consider that our superiors aswell as the
subordinates are always busy. Theytherefore have no ample time to read
wordyletters that would only tarry their work. In fact,most of them only spot the
essential informationin a written correspondence. However,concision (brief) does not
mean deleting wordsthat count and make your statements brusque(rough in
manner).
Brevity
means using necessary words only asyou retain the natural tone of your
sentences.

2a) AVOID REDUNDANCIES ORSUPERFLUOUS WORDS

true facts new innovation

for recreation purposes in the event of whether or not hold in abeyancegeneral cons
ensus a large number were as follows a total of 42 joined together basically not awar
e of strangled to death new recruitscontroversial issue past experiencefuture plans p
rotest againstcompletely eliminated qualified expertdefinite decision reason whytotall
y destroyed equipped withnever before in the past bring the matter to the attention
with reference to for the reason thatin view of the fact that in compliance with your re
questnotwithstanding the fact that under the prevailingcircumstancesin the event
thata period of a week arrive at an agreementsufficient amount of other alternativesa
t an earlier point in time earlier, beforemake use of end productmy personal opinion
was in communicationlend assistance to withsubmitted hereunder enclosed hereto/h
erewithIn addition attached herewithin relation to kind consideration

2b)
AVOID GOOBLEDYGOOK
These are impressive, bombastic andunnecessary use of long words and
stuffystyle that complicates the message of aletter or memorandum and
makes it lessunderstandable or readable to the receiver.Examples:

Aerodynamic personnel decelerators - parachutes

Interlocking slide fasteners - zippers


Wood inter-dental stimulators - toothpick

Example of gobbledygook paragraph This pertains to your delivery that

Iordered last 10 April 2007 and wasdelivered yesterday, Tuesday, 26 April2005
by your delivery men in our newaddress in 101 central Avenue,Quezon City
that contains severalbroken items.Better paragraph :Your delivery dated10
April 2007 contains 20 brokenchandeliers.

Here are two well-known proverbs withgobbledygook:

Feathered bipeds of similar plumage willlive gregariously.

Too great a number of culinaryassistants may impair the flavor of theconsomme.

2c) Avoidtriteness(tired oldphrases or clichs)Examples:

in the final analysis

hard as a rock

last but not the least

bite the bullet

cold as ice

like a new born babe

2d) Avoid misleadingeuphemismsor

useeuphemisms sparingly (expressions aimedat politeness or at making

unpleasantsubjects seem less offensive)

Examples:

meet our Creator (dying)

policy of disinformation (lying to the public)

conflicts and collateral damage ( wars andcivilian casualties)

downsized workers (laid-off workers)

2e)Avoidweak phrases
Weak Better

wealthy business person - tycoon

business prosperity - boom

carrying a child - pregnant

long years - years

one year old boy - one year of age boy

2f) Avoid generality

General Specific
traveled in another country - traveled inJapanone kilo of rice - one kilogramof
ricevisit the province - visit Batangasmy better-half - my husband;my wife