Guide to writing an informal letter.

When you are writing an informal letter or sending an email to a friend, it is very important for the examiners to try and make it sound friendly and chatty.

Add a few bits of personal chat, usually at the start of the letter, to make it seem genuine

Make sure main part of letter relates to task and that you use appropriate tone.

Don’t be bright and cheerful if writing to pass on bad news.

Do not use ‘text’ speech eg ” Hey Bobby! how r u?” or “I got a present 4 u”

Do not use slang e.g. ‘gonna’ or ‘cos’

Use contracted verb forms like we’ve, I’m, etc.

Use short sentences and active verb forms. Write the address and date on the right.

Useful Phrases

Dear ….Best wishes…;Yours faithfully…; I am sorry to inform you that…; I am very grateful for… Why don’t we… I will not be able to attend the…; Give my regards to…; I look forward to hearing from you…; Let me know as soon as… I’m really sorry I…We had a little bit of luck…

Some useful expressions to begin an informal letter

Thank you for your letter which I received yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from you. It was wonderful to hear from you after so long. Thank you for your letter. I was pleased to hear that you are in good health. It was really nice hearing from you. I am glad that you like your new school.

Some useful expressions to end an informal letter

I promise to write to you soon. I hope you will reply soon. Give my best wishes to your parents. I am looking forward to seeing you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Guide to Writing Persuasive Speeches

Purpose of Speech

Speeches are usually formal spoken presentations for a particular purpose—often to persuade an audience to support an idea, or to explain or describe an interesting topic or past event.

An effective speech

• engages the audience straight away through personal reference or surprising information.
• uses humour, powerful ideas, imagery, rhetorical questions and repetition to make a point.
• uses a range of sentence lengths for effect

Successful Persuasion

Successful persuasive language appeals to:

1. LOGIC Reasoning is clear and consistent. Logic may be real or false (i.e. giving the appearance of logic)
2. PERSON Know and understand the audience. Knowledge of personal motivations and history can be used to good effect.
3. EMOTION Use emotional appeal, highly emotive words, images, and colours to stir an effective response.

Structure of a persuasive speech/ speech

Opening:

• Captures audience’s attention;
• Start with yourself and why you are speaking.
• Include an interesting fact or item of information.
• Clearly state your opinion.

Body

• Developing your ideas;
• Using questions to engage listeners.
• Your argument.
• Acknowledgement of the other argument/ opinion.

Conclusion

• Summarise your speech.
• Conclude the speech memorably.

Useful words:

Adverbs: evidently; understandably; reasonable; undoubtedly; clearly; finally; strongly; adamantly

Verbs: to challenge; to oppose; to question; to implore; to urge; to condemn; to propose; to support

Adjectives: Vital; important; essential; biased; dishonest; inappropriate; controversial; brave; foolish

Transitional words and phrases: In addition,…; Furthermore,…; Above all… It goes without saying…; Of course,…; Decidedly…; Undoubtedly…; Indeed…; In fact… Specifically,…; More importantly,… Yet,… ; However,… In summary…

Useful phrases:

This needs to be dealt with…; Some people feel that…; How could you possibly…; What would happen if…; This would mean that…; Is it really worth…/ Do you really think…; Just think about…; I believe that…; Although not everybody would agree, I want to argue that…; There are several points I want to make to support my point of view. Firstly…; I have several reasons for arguing for this point of view. My first reason is…; Therefore, although some people argue that…; think that I have shown that…; We can solve this by…; If these plans go ahead…

Read the following speech identify the persuasive P IN A FOREST techniques (personal pronouns, alliteration, fact, opinion, rhetorical questions, repetition, emotive language, statistics, rule of three)

Ladies, Gentleman and Children, lend me your ears!

I am here today to express my utter disgust at the so called ‘sport’ of fox hunting.

Some of these rich, posh, toffee-nosed public school boys in tights say that shooting foxes does not always kill the fox outright and that hunting with dogs is actually more humane. However, that could not be further from the truth. Fox hunters chose foxes purely for puerile pleasure; not because they want to help farmers. Indeed, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported a case of a twelve year old girl and her ten year old brother being traumatised at the sight of a fox being torn limb from limb by a pack of blood-thirsty hounds. Does this sound like humane pest control to you?

Furthermore, being hunted by a wild pack is not a humane way to die. Statistics show that 92% of foxes killed in the hunt have a longer, more agonising death than these killed by more traditional methods of pest control.

Stop the murder,stop the violence, stop fox hunting!

Feature/ Magazine Article Guide

Feature/ magazine articles.

These are creative texts that deal with real life events and issues.

The emphasis in these articles is on the people, ideas and views, not just facts.

Feature articles have a more personal tone than news reports and can include the writer’s opinion on a topic.

Often writer’s are passionate about the subject.

Portrays a slice of life or pushes a topic to make a bigger point.

Feature articles rely on interviews and give the opinions of different people as well as the facts.

Feature articles use secondary sources that support the writer’s view: interviews,anecdotes and statistics.

Feature articles do not always have a serious tone, unlike news reports.

Types of feature articles: human-interest, personality, news feature, how-to and past events.

Feature articles are timeless. They can be about something that happened a long time ago, or an ongoing issue.

Doesn’t rely on short sentences. Uses complex sentences and relative clauses.

Structure

Headlines. These should be catch but informative and in the present tense.

Byline.  The name of the writer.

Interesting lead.  Grabs attention.

Leads can be: narrative, descriptive, a startling statement, a twist or compare and contrast.

Billboard. What the story is about. (any of the who, what, where, when, how information that you have not covered in the lead.)

Sub-topics. Each paragraph tells a different part of the sentences. You should use transitional sentences to link paragraphs.

Memorable conclusion. Brings a sense of resolution. Summarise the article, express your opinion, leave the reader with something to think about.

Final sentence. A memorable quotation or statement that looks to the future.

Crafting an opening paragraph for a descriptive feature article.

Watch this video here  for advice on writing an engaging opening paragraph with varied sentence lengths.

Persuade (Paper 2 Question 1 and Paper 3 Question 1)

If you are answering Question 1 of Paper 2 or Question 3 of paper 3, the directed writing/ reading questions, you may see the word persuade.

Persuasive texts encourages the reader to do something.

You can use language devices in your persuasive or argumentative responses. A quick way to remember some of these devices in P in A FOREST.

P= Personal Pronouns

A= Aliteration

F= Facts

O= Opinions

R= Rhetorical Questions/ Repetition

E= Emotive Language

S= Statistics

T= Triplets (Rule of Three)

To revise these techniques and more go here.

Formal Letter (Question 1 Paper 2 or Question 1 Paper 3)

Formal Letter Structure

1. Opening

Address your letter to Dear + the name or job title of the person you have been asked to write to, then start a new line for the opening paragraph.

2. Paragraph 1: Introduction

Why are you writing?

Give the general aim and minimum information only, e.g. to complain, apply, request, disagree, and an indication of what you are responding to e.g. a recent holiday or a letter in last week’s newspaper.

3. Paragraph 2: Details of situation

Give previous history of event or your background or experience.

Say what happened exactly if you are making a complaint, or focus directly on the text you are arguing with.

This section should include specific data such as names, dates, facts and details.

4. Paragraph 3: Further development

Give further support to your claim or request.

Summarise the current situation and why you should be given consideration e.g. other problems which occured with your holiday accommodation, how well you fulfil the job requirements

5. Final paragraph: Future action

Say what you wish to happen next e.g. that you look forward to being called for interview or expect to receive some compensation as soon as possible. Suggest, firmly but politely, what may happen if you do not receive a response to a complaint.

Writing a New Article/ report (Question 1 Paper 2 or Question 1 Paper 3)

HOW TO WRITE A NEWS REPORT.

Headlines

Headlines are short, catchy and are the first thing to grab a readers attention

You can use alliteration, strong verbs, personification etc.

They are always in the present tense.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PARAGRAPHS IN NEWS REPORTS ARE THE FIRST AND LAST PARAGRAPHS.

Introduction

In the first few sentences, answer these questions: Who? What? When? Where? This will pull the reader into the story and makes him or her want to read more.

Body of article.

Background, news event, quotations.

Now, give the details.

It is always a good idea to include one or two quotations from people you interviewed.

Write in the third person (he, she, it or they)

Be objective (not biased) but you can give the opinions of the people quoted.

Use some passive verbs, but also active verbs so the reader feels things are really happening!

Last paragraph

What will happen in the future?

Consequences, investigations, predictions.

These help to lead to build a strong conclusion

 The last sentence.

Try ending with a quote or a catchy phrase!

Read this news article and identify each of the things mentioned above.

Bus Plunges Off Bridge Killing Dozens

Letter of Proposal. (Question 1 Paper 2 or Question 1 Paper 3)

Have you forgotten how to organise and structure a letter of proposal? Read this!

Introduction 

• Introduce yourself (your name, any post/position, any group you are representing).
• Read the task – not always necessary to introduce yourself, if you are writing to someone you know.
• Acknowledge the task you have at hand (if the proposal is a solicited one) State the purpose of writing the letter

Body

• For each point: Highlight current reality – identify the problem or what is lacking in the given situation
• State your proposed idea /suggestion/solution
• Explain how your idea can help improve the situation, or state the benefits of your ideas.
• Consolidate and persuade/assure at the end of each point.
• Keep your writing formal and polite

Conclusion

• Highlight the effort that went into preparing the proposal
• Summarise your main argument
• Show confidence that your proposal will achieve its intended purpose
• Thank the reader for reading your ideas.

Paper 2 Question 1. Letter Writing.

You could be asked to write a formal or informal letter as the first question in either Paper 2 or Paper 3.

Remember, in Paper 2 the examiners are predominantly looking for your reading skills, so you are awarded more marks for the content of your writing- up 15 marks are available. You can also be awarded up to 5 marks for the quality of your writing.

In Paper 3 the examiners are looking for your writing skills. You can be awarded up to 15 marks for your writing skills and 10 for your reading.

This video focuses on a past paper which you have read before. June 2010 Paper 2 0500/22.

Paper 2. Question 1. Examiner Tips.

• The passage will be literary and/or contain description of a person or place or both. You will have to be sensitive to atmosphere and show appreciation of the feelings of the characters in your response.
• This question is rewarded not only for identification of relevant material in the passage but also inference, development of the ideas and use of supporting detail. There are therefore four types of content required to show advanced comprehension for a top mark out of 15 for Reading.
• For full marks out of 5 for Writing you need to demonstrate structure, sequence, and ‘a wide range of original and appropriate language’.
• It will help you enormously to highlight the material you are going to use in the text, and then write a quick plan in order to organise it into a logical structure before you start writing your response. This will enable you to avoid repetition and to make sure you are fully answering the question.
• Use everything which is relevant, not just some of the material. On the other hand, there may be some parts which you should ignore because they are not covered by the question. • Do not drift away from the text; everything you write must be ‘tethered’ to the passage i.e. have a direct connection with it and be supported by references to it.
• Before you start writing, decide how formal the task is and adopt an appropriate tone. No question in an exam assessing your ability to use educated English will expect you to use slang or jargon or non-sentences, so expect to have to write in a reasonably formal style whoever your audience is and whatever the task. Even a letter to a relative will be someone distant or older, such as an uncle whom you haven’t met recently, and a report to your fellow students will be official or for publication in the school magazine. It is essential to remember who your audience is and to address them directly as ‘you’.
• Though you can use short quotations from the passage within your response, you should not copy big chunks of text and you should use your own words when not actually giving details.
• If the question has several parts you can either integrate the two, e.g. advantages and disadvantages, or deal with them separately. You can decide on your own structure for your answer, but what matters is that there should be a structure of some kind, and one which the reader can discern.
• It is time-wasting and does not achieve anything to try to design your answer in the layout which you think might be appropriate in real life, e.g. dividing a newspaper report into columns and adding drawings and extraneous advertising material. This cannot be rewarded and can distract you from the real task of providing appropriate and accurate content for your response.
• What is important is that your answer should be divided into paragraphs, as all continuous prose should be.
• If you are given bullet points to remind you what should be included, use them to check you have covered what is required, and they can also help you to structure your answer. The material from the passage should be put into the appropriate section and not repeated.
• Do not add extra sections, for instance where you are given which questions to ask in an interview, stick to those questions only. It makes the response too fragmented or less focused if you add more.