6.3 Precautions in Report Writing

1. The reader's mercy: the plain sentence (the Legalese's restraint — Legal English's lessons), the paragraph's unity, the signposting (the roadmap's paragraphs). 2. The evidence's discipline: every claim sourced; the data's honest presentation (no chart's deception — the axis's honesty); the negative findings reported (the null result is a result). 3. The objectivity's tone: the conclusion following the evidence (not the enthusiasm); the first person's measured use; the emotive language's avoidance. 4. The consistency's hygiene: the terms' uniformity (the "respondent" who becomes "informant" mid-report — the reader's confusion); the tenses (the method in past, the findings in present); the numbers' formats. 5. The completeness' checks: the abstract-after-the-body (the summary's truth); the cross- references' accuracy (the "see Chapter 5" that points nowhere); the proofreading's rounds. 6. The submission's ethics: the deadline's respect; the honesty about the limits (the generalisation's boundaries); the acknowledgments' completeness (the assistance credited). 7. The law's own precautions: the statutes' current version checked (the repeal-and- amendment traps — the Contract Act 2056 cited as living law is the standard error); the cases' citations verified against the reports (the parallel-citation chaos); the quotations' exactness.