Editing a Situation Report for Correctness and Clarity
A cadet duty officer drafted this situation report for a company commander:
"The squad have completed there patrol and has returned to base, however none of the equipment were damaged. We seen three unidentified persons near the north gate, and they was carrying no weapons. The team is requesting additional radios because it is needed for coordination."
The commander values concise, factual reports. She asks you to correct the grammar and usage, remove ambiguity, and keep the tone professional. A second draft reads: "The squad completed its patrol and returned to base; no equipment was damaged. We saw three unidentified persons near the north gate; they carried no weapons. The team requests additional radios because radios are needed for coordination."
You must decide which corrections matter most for meaning and which are merely stylistic.
1. Identify the grammar and usage errors in the first draft and explain the correction for each.
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Key errors: (1) "The squad have" - in formal military writing, a squad is treated as a single unit, so use "has." (2) "there patrol" - wrong homophone; use "their" or, better, "its" because the squad is singular. (3) "has returned" after "have completed" - inconsistent; use "has completed ... and has returned" or simplify to "completed ... and returned." (4) "none of the equipment were" - "none" can take singular or plural, but "equipment" is collective; "no equipment was damaged" is clearer. (5) "We seen" - incorrect past tense; use "we saw." (6) "they was" - subject-verb agreement; use "they were." (7) "it is needed" - the pronoun "it" has no clear antecedent; replace with "radios are needed." (8) The comma before "however" creates a comma splice; use a semicolon or period.
2. Compare the first draft with the second draft. Which version better meets the commander's requirement for clarity and professional tone, and why?
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The second draft is better. It fixes the subject-verb errors, removes the homophone confusion, and replaces the vague pronoun "it" with "radios." It also uses a semicolon to separate independent clauses, avoiding the comma splice. The tone is factual and unadorned: "The squad completed its patrol and returned to base; no equipment was damaged." That is appropriate for a situation report because it states events and results without speculation. One could argue that "they carried no weapons" is slightly less precise than "they were observed carrying no weapons," but the second draft still preserves meaning without adding unverified detail. For a military report, the best revision is the one that is unambiguous first and elegant second.
3. Why is the vague pronoun in "because it is needed" a serious problem in a military report, rather than a minor style issue?
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A vague pronoun forces the reader to guess the referent. In this sentence, "it" could mean the team, the coordination, the mission, or the radios. In a military report, ambiguity can cause the wrong resource to be requested or the wrong problem to be solved. The commander may approve radios for the wrong reason or fail to see that the actual shortage is radios for coordination. The fix is simple: name the noun. "The team requests additional radios because radios are needed for coordination" is slightly repetitive, so a stronger version is "The team requests additional radios to improve coordination." That removes the pronoun and tightens the sentence.