Lesson · 24 min

Observation, Reporting, and Professional Conduct

Writing a report that holds up, and handling people without escalating.

By the end of this lesson you can

Write an incident report that is factual and defensible
Distinguish observation from conclusion
De-escalate a confrontation verbally
Describe conduct expectations, including on discrimination

📘 Reading Lesson

Lesson Notes

Read through the key concepts before you try the challenge.

The report may be read in court

On the job

You are writing up an incident at the end of a shift.

You write that a man was acting suspiciously and appeared intoxicated. Eighteen months later, in a deposition, you are asked what suspiciously means and how you established intoxication. Neither is a fact you observed — they are conclusions you drew, and you cannot support either.

Your task: Learn to write reports that survive being read years later by someone looking for weaknesses.

Write this	Not this
Subject was unsteady and his speech was slurred	Subject was drunk
Subject walked the same aisle four times and looked toward the office repeatedly	Subject was acting suspiciously
Subject raised his voice and pointed at me	Subject became aggressive
I observed a broken window pane, approximately 30 cm across	Someone broke in
Subject stated, “I work here”	Subject claimed to be an employee
Subject declined to provide identification	Subject refused to cooperate

Observation versus conclusion

A report that records conclusions rather than observations is worth very little and can be actively damaging. You cannot testify to someone's state of mind or their blood alcohol level, and asserting either invites the question of how you knew. Record what you saw and heard, quote what was said, and let a conclusion follow from the facts rather than replacing them.

Element	Detail
Who	People involved, described or named, and witnesses
What	What happened, in the order it happened
When	Specific times, not 'around midnight'
Where	Exact location on the property
How	The sequence, as observed
Action taken	What you did and who you notified, with times

The elements of a complete report

De-escalation is a security guard's most-used skill and the least-trained one. What works: keeping your voice lower and slower than theirs, keeping your distance, letting them finish without interrupting, acknowledging the feeling before addressing the facts, and giving them a way out that does not require backing down publicly. What does not work: matching their volume, issuing orders, or standing too close.

Guards are subject to civil rights law. Stopping, following, or scrutinizing someone on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin is unlawful discrimination and exposes both you and your employer. Suspicion must be based on observed behavior that you can describe in a report — and if you cannot write down what the person did, you do not have grounds.

Check your understanding

Which sentence belongs in an incident report?

Challenge

Apply what you've learned in this lesson.

Report writing improves fastest by rewriting bad reports.

Rewrite each conclusion in the table as an observation, without using the original word.
Write a full incident report for an invented event covering all six elements.
Research verbal de-escalation and write down five specific techniques.
Write down what you would record if you had grounds to be concerned about someone, in terms that could not be read as discriminatory.

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