Training

INVESTIGATIVE
Report Writing
Training

With over twenty years of federal criminal investigative experience, and an award-winning teaching background,

I have designed a highly effective and engaging report writing class specially tailored to 
criminal and administrative investigators, auditors, law enforcement officers, and corporate investigators.

Continue reading to learn more about my classes and my background,
and then visit the Class Descriptions and Pricing to schedule an investigative report writing class
that will dramatically improve the reports produced by your staff.

Why Take a Writing Class?

After 20 years of reading reports written by educated professionals in various career fields, I have learned that many people are experts in most facets of their jobs, but they often struggle to convey their work in a well-written report. My program seeks to teach your employees how to apply advanced writing principles to the specific reports they produce for your department.

What Do I Teach?

I focus on how to improve the readability, accuracy, and conciseness of the students’ reports. I also address how to write for a specific audience, how to correct common grammar errors, and how to integrate useful visual tools into reports. I pay particular attention to teaching proper editing techniques that will dramatically improve writing performance.

How Do I Train?

The training atmosphere is enjoyable and relaxing, ensuring everyone is actively engaged in the class. I integrate practical exercises that offer students an opportunity to practice what they learn and allow me to provide critical individual feedback to improve everyone’s writing. I tailor the training to the specific needs of your department or office.

Case Studies

Many case study presentations tell the story of the crime and are often not engaging.  However, as a teacher, I want my audience to learn from the case itself, so I tell the story of the investigation.  I believe the learning points are found in the investigative steps that I took as well as the challenges I faced and the solutions I found to those problems.  If you want to help your staff learn ways to investigate public corruption, contract and procurement fraud, healthcare fraud, and employee theft, I can provide training with informative and engaging case studies that are focused on ensuring the students learn innovative ways to tackle challenging cases. Contact me to schedule a training class for your investigators.

Conferences

I have provided presentations to local, state, and federal government conferences, as well as corporate, non-profit, and member organization conferences.  As you can see from the testimonials below, my presentations are engaging, informative, and well-received by conference attendees.  I can adapt my presentation to the needs of your audience, but common topics include case studies of captivating major corruption investigations and report writing refresher training.  Contact me to discuss the needs for your next conference.

Biography

about me

kd@edarnell.com

LinkedIn

edarnell.com

I retired in 2021 after serving nearly 25 years as a federal criminal investigator.  As a Special Agent, I conducted diverse investigations involving government corruption, contract fraud, health care fraud, counterintelligence matters, and protective security operations. I am a certified adjunct instructor for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), and regularly teach search warrant affidavit and report writing classes for the federal Inspector General Academy.  Additionally, I present effective report writing techniques and case studies at government and industry conferences.

Prior to becoming a criminal investigator, I taught English composition at the university level.

I have received multiple awards, including the Agent of the Year award in 2013 and the regional Agent of the Year award in 2007. I was the lead investigator on a major public corruption case that received the Significant Fraud Case award from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2017. I received an Award for Excellence in 2012 from the Council for the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) for my work on a case involving defective battlefield munitions, and I received the adjunct instructor of the year award in 2017 from the CIGIE Criminal Investigator Academy.

Clients

Past Clients

I have provided investigative and report writing training to premier law enforcement, government, and private organizations around the country, including, among others:

  • Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE)
  • Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General
  • Miami-Dade County (FL) Office of Inspector General
  • Pinellas County (FL) Office of Inspector General
  • Morrow County (OH) Probation Services
  • Florida Court Clerks and Comptrollers
  • Arkansas Bankers Association Annual Conference
  • Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA)
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
  • Arkansas Bankers Association Mega Conference
  • Maryland Education OIG
  • Baltimore (MD) County OIG
  • New York City Housing Authority
  • Environmental Protection Agency OIG
  • U.S. Navy Command Inspectors General

Testimonials

Testimonials

The following is real feedback from students who have attended my classes:

As a relatively new Investigator, this was the best training course that I have taken so far. I think every Agent, Investigator, and Analyst would benefit from taking it, even if just as a refresher.

You were…super engaging and patient…There were a lot of useful tips to navigate very common issues.  The information provided was easy to understand and specific to the needs of our office.

Excellent instruction and coordination. Instructor was well-prepared, captivating, humble, and informative…I am very pleased with the course and would highly recommend it to others.
1) The presenter was very knowledgeable. 2) His format flowed nicely. 3) He used applicable examples to ensure attendees understood the content. 4) He engaged with the attendees, which created…good participation.

This is honestly the best and most helpful class I have taken in a while. The tips given to help improve written [reports] were so helpful…I would even retake this class.

The instructor was excellent at maintaining the attendees’ attention…Overall, this training was by far the best I’ve attended!

The instructor was engaged, prepared, and entertaining.

Seriously, great class.  You did something that most cannot do – you made a writing class interesting and super fun!

Thank you Keith for passing on the valuable…lessons. You kept the class fun and engaging which is hard to do in an online environment. My report writing will definitely benefit from this course.

He is an expert at writing and brings a level of knowledge required for a class like this one.
Great course. I really enjoyed it and I will be recommending it to others! Thank you.
You did a great job and covered so much.  It is going to help us be better writers.
Keith was great. His delivery was fresh and entertaining.
I thought Keith did a wonderful job teaching the course. He made the class informative and entertaining, too.
Keith was very clear and organized when leading this course on investigative writing. Keith also was both informative and engaging.

I found everything in your discussion extremely helpful. I could benefit from more training like this. You were entertaining while providing your instruction. You made the day fly by!

I have seen great improvements in the overall writing of staff, and I can confidently say that the training was well worth it and extremely beneficial.
I felt the whole class was wonderfully organized…[he] kept things moving, interesting, and engaging for the entire session.
I have been struggling with report writing and almost immediately you’ve really helped me to understand why I stare at my computer screen without being able to type.
Thank you for the very informative, excellent, and thorough training!
My team really enjoyed the investigative writing course…They mentioned that he was really engaging…and gave some really helpful tips on grammar [and] concise writing.
Great energy, upbeat. Dynamic speaker. Best speaker of the conference.
Very good speaker – best one at conference
Tremendous presentation! Should be giving this presentation to all…classes
[He] did an excellent job providing guidance to me during this training course. He is professional yet brings friendliness that encourages interaction and discussion.
Mr. Darnell was highly valuable to the course. His feedback and guidance gave me the confidence to continue to become a better writer.
I think the fact that the topics were carefully curated to be useful for the work that is done by investigators and analysts made this training extremely informative and applicable.
Honestly, having someone with great people skills to discuss an otherwise dry topic makes all the difference. Also, [his] passion for writing makes it easy to learn from him because you feel you are basically asking an expert for advice on something that greatly affects…your job.
The section on taking notes was most helpful to me because I feel that it provided useful strategies to collect the most important details of an interview so that reports are as meaningful as possible.
The greatest strength of this training comes from the instructor’s ability to tailor the training to our specific needs and base it on the work we produce…His empathy and amazing personality made it a comfortable and safe environment. This proved to be extremely beneficial for helping us remain open and not defensive when discussing our errors or shortcomings.  
Very detailed and informative, easy to understand, class was fun and interesting.
Informative and useful information presented in [a] digestible and understandable manner.
Great course. Presented a ton of info in a coherent and engaging manner.  
[He] showed us all aspects of search warrant writing that we all could improve on. Based on his training and experience, we all were able to draw from his instruction and create a new set of skills that will allow us to be successful in the future. Very well done.


The SW affidavit elements were extremely helpful. I appreciated the advice and insight that [he] provided regarding suppression hearings and electronic evidence as it relates to the Attachment B portion of the warrant.

The instructor…was knowledgeable and clearly had a passion for English. The content of the training was interesting and the instructor helped facilitate good classroom discussions.  

Contact

Please visit the Class Descriptions and Pricing to schedule an investigative report writing class
that will dramatically improve the reports produced by your staff.

Contact

Have questions or need more information?
Please contact me at
kd@edarnell.com
and I will be happy to help.