The Returned Incident Report
Cadet Reyes submits a three-sentence incident report. It comes back ungraded, with only the duty officer's note: 'Rewrite. Precision is a form of respect for the reader.'
The report reads: 'At 0545 hours, the squad was awakened by the duty officer, who reported that a window in the supply room had been broken and several items was missing. Searching the perimeter, footprints were found leading toward the creek. Neither the sergeant nor the cadets has been able to identify the intruder, and they are requesting that a formal investigation be conducted.'
The duty officer adds three margin comments: (1) 'Who searched?' (2) 'Check your agreement.' (3) 'Your last clause hides the actor.' Reyes protests that the report is 'formal enough' and that the passive voice is required in military writing. The company commander wants the report corrected, not merely annotated, before it goes to battalion.
1. Identify every grammatical error in the passage, name the rule involved, and give the correction.
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Error 1 - subject-verb agreement. 'several items was missing' → 'several items were missing.' The subject is the plural 'items'; the singular verb may have been attracted by the nearby singular 'window.'
Error 2 - dangling participle. 'Searching the perimeter, footprints were found…' The implied subject of 'searching' is whoever searched, but the sentence makes 'footprints' the subject. → 'While searching the perimeter, the squad found footprints…'
Error 3 - neither/nor agreement. 'Neither the sergeant nor the cadets has been able…' With 'neither…nor,' the verb agrees with the nearer subject, 'cadets,' so → 'have been able.' (Reverse the order and 'has' would be correct.)
Error 4 - unclear pronoun reference. 'they are requesting' has no clear antecedent: the sergeant? the cadets? the squad? The reader cannot tell who is asking for the investigation. → 'the squad requests' or 'the sergeant requests.'
No error in 'At 0545 hours' or in 'had been broken' - the actor there is genuinely unknown, so the passive is appropriate.
2. Rewrite the passage in three sentences that keep every fact and the formal register. Then explain two changes you made and why.
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Model rewrite: 'At 0545 hours the duty officer awakened the squad and reported that someone had broken a window in the supply room and that several items were missing. While searching the perimeter, the squad found footprints leading toward the creek. Neither the sergeant nor the cadets have identified the intruder, and the squad requests a formal investigation.'
Change 1 - active voice where the actor is known. The original 'footprints were found' conceals the squad, which is exactly the information an incident report exists to record. Naming the squad fixes the dangling participle and answers the margin note 'Who searched?'
Change 2 - agreement repaired at the nearest subject. 'Neither the sergeant nor the cadets have' follows the neither/nor rule, and 'the squad requests' replaces the vague 'they.'
Note what was not changed: 'had been broken' stays passive, because whoever broke the window is unknown. The rewrite therefore uses active voice for known actors and passive voice for unknown ones - the actual principle, rather than a blanket rule.
3. Evaluate Reyes's claim that 'the passive voice is required in military writing,' using specific clauses from his own report.
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The claim is too broad, and Reyes's own text shows why. Passive voice is useful, not required, and it has two very different jobs:
Legitimate use - unknown or irrelevant actor. 'A window… had been broken' is correct because the breaker is unidentified; writing 'someone broke' adds nothing. Similarly, 'an investigation be conducted' is acceptable if the report genuinely does not care who conducts it.
Illegitimate use - hiding a known actor. 'Footprints were found' omits the squad, which the report must record. 'They are requesting' hides who is asking. Here the passive creates ambiguity, not formality.
A practical test for the candidate: ask 'do we know who did it?' If yes, name the actor; if no, the passive is fine. Formality comes from precise wording, consistent terminology, and a clear timeline - not from removing subjects. Reyes has confused a style preference with a regulation, and the duty officer's margin notes are pointing at exactly that confusion.