Briefly explain how to limit your report to specifics.

What will be an ideal response?

ANSWER: The client (who might be an attorney, a detective, or an investigator) should define the investigation’s goal or mission. All reports to the client should start by stating this mission or goal, which is usually to find information on a specific subject, recover certain important documents, or recover certain types of files or files with specific dates and times. Clearly defining the goals reduces the time and cost of the examination and is especially important with the increasing size of hard drives and complexity of networks.

Before you begin writing, identify your audience and the purpose of the report to help you focus on specifics. Remember that if the audience has little technical knowledge, you might have to dedicate part of the report to educating readers on technical issues. You can do this with a set of several stock paragraphs that you keep on hand, although you should update these stock definitions periodically.