5 exercises on the professional English phrases for reporting, triaging, escalating, and closing software defects.
Key communication collocations
file a bug report → officially submit a defect ticket
triage the backlog → assess and prioritise bugs by severity and impact
update [someone] on the status → share latest progress with stakeholders
escalate a blocker → raise urgency; involve senior people or other teams
mark as Won't Fix → formally close without action, with documented reason
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A developer creates a new Jira ticket for a bug they found. Which sentence uses the correct collocation?
"File a bug report" — the standard collocation for creating a defect ticket:
File is the primary verb for officially submitting a report, complaint, or ticket. It comes from the office/legal tradition of filing (placing into a file). In software engineering, "file a bug" and "file a report" are the natural collocations.
Bug report creation vocabulary:
file a bug / a bug report / a ticket → the most formal and standard verb
log a bug → also correct and common: "Log it in Jira"
raise a bug / an issue → British English preference: "Can you raise a ticket for this?"
open an issue → common on GitHub: "Please open an issue on the repository"
create a ticket → neutral and generic
report a bug → natural in conversation: "Users are reporting a bug with the login form"
Good bug report content: Title: concise description. Steps to Reproduce (STR). Expected result. Actual result. Environment. Severity/Priority. Attachments (screenshots, logs, video).
2 / 5
A QA lead says in standup: "I've gone through the backlog — there are 47 open bugs. I need an hour this morning to ___ them so we know what to work on first this sprint."
Which verb is correct?
"Triage" — the process of assessing and prioritising bugs:
Triage (from French: trier = to sort/select) originally comes from battlefield medicine — sorting casualties by severity to decide who gets treatment first. In software, bug triage means assessing each bug's severity, priority, impact, and effort, then deciding what to fix, when, and who should do it.
Triage vocabulary:
triage bugs / the backlog → assess and prioritise: "Let's triage the backlog before sprint planning"
triage meeting → a scheduled session for triaging bugs
severity → technical impact of the bug
priority → urgency of fixing it (business decision)
effort estimate → how much work is required to fix it
Typical triage outcomes per bug: Fix now (P0/P1) → Fix in this sprint → Fix in next sprint → Fix someday (backlog) → Won't Fix → Need more information → Duplicate. "Triage" implies making these decisions systematically.
3 / 5
A project manager writes to stakeholders: "The checkout bug is affecting 15% of transactions. I want to share the latest on our response. Let me ___ you on where we stand."
Which verb phrase is correct?
"Update you on" — the standard collocation for sharing status:
Update someone on something is the natural, professional way to share the latest information about an ongoing situation. It implies there is a known issue and you are communicating progress.
Status communication vocabulary:
update [someone] on [the status/situation] → share latest progress: "Let me update the team on the incident"
communicate the status → broader, more formal: "Communicate status to stakeholders hourly"
keep [someone] in the loop → ensure continuous awareness: "Keep the CEO in the loop on P0 bugs"
send a status update → written communication of progress
brief someone → formal, often one-way: "Brief the board on the security incident"
Note on "inform on": "Inform you on" is grammatically awkward — "inform" takes a direct object: "inform you of the situation." "Update you on" is idiomatic and complete.
4 / 5
An engineer writes in an incident channel: "This bug is now affecting the payments service — all transactions are failing. I'm ___ this to the on-call engineering manager and the VP of Engineering."
Which verb is correct?
"Escalate" — bringing in higher authority or urgency:
Escalate means to raise the severity, visibility, or decision-making level of an issue. In incident management, escalation means alerting people with more authority, more resources, or cross-functional responsibility to join the response.
escalation path → the predefined chain of who to contact at each severity level
page someone → send an alert via PagerDuty/OpsGenie: "Page the on-call engineer"
declare an incident → formally initiate the incident response process
incident commander → the person leading the response
"Forward" vs "escalate": "Forward" simply means to redirect a message — no change in urgency or authority. "Escalate" explicitly means the situation is serious enough to involve more senior people. Use "escalate" when the stakes are high or the issue is blocked; use "forward" for simple information routing.
5 / 5
In a bug triage meeting, the product manager says: "This bug only affects Internet Explorer 11, which represents 0.02% of our users, and IE11 is officially end-of-life. I'm going to ___ it as Won't Fix."
Which verb is correct?
"Mark as Won't Fix" — the standard collocation for closing without action:
Mark as [status] is the universal collocation for changing a ticket's status label. "Mark as Won't Fix" (or "Mark as Wont Fix" / "Won't Fix") is a formal decision that the team acknowledges the bug but has decided not to fix it — and communicates why.
Won't Fix vocabulary and when to use it:
mark as Won't Fix → standard status action in Jira, GitHub, Bugzilla
close as Won't Fix → also correct: "Closing as Won't Fix — IE11 is EOL"
By Design → the behaviour is intentional, not a bug
Duplicate → same issue already tracked elsewhere
Cannot Reproduce (CNR) → couldn't recreate the bug
Won't Fix justification: Always leave a clear comment explaining the decision: affected user %, cost vs benefit, EOL platform, or "by design" reason. This prevents the ticket being reopened needlessly and maintains a clear audit trail.