Writing Made Easy
At Surrey's Learning and Counselling Centre our resources are created to make life simple.
Let's start with producing texts.
Writing
Produce texts which are appropriate to task, reader and purpose.
This is quite possibly the most important thing to master. You must make sure that you answer the question properly and fully.
Have you ever spent hours on a piece of homework, only to be told that it’s “good, but you didn’t answer the question” or you didn’t write in the correct format. It’s frustrating, isn’t it?
What is my task?
In other words, what am I being asked to write?
For many subjects, you may have more short answers and might be clearer what the task is.
However, for some questions and subjects, you will be told what to write, and this is your task.
Article, Speech, Leaflet, Letter or Story
In English, you will need to read the question even more carefully. You could be asked to write one of the following:
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a leaflet
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a letter
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an article
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a speech
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a story
You must be clear on what you are being asked to do. For instance, if you are being asked to write an article, you should include a headline.
More guidance is given here.
Science Report Writing is different...
In science, if you have been asked to write a report on an experiment, your teacher will usually tell you to include the following:
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Title
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Aim or Abstract
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Introduction
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Method
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Results
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Discussion/ Evaluation/ Methods of Improvement
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Reference/Bibliography
We know need to consider the reader.
Question:
Write an opinion piece for the school newspaper in which you give your point of view on this statement.
“School uniforms are outdated. We should be allowed to wear our own clothes”
Who is the reader?
Firstly, ask yourself who the reader is. In this case it is the school newspaper reader.
Then, you should ask yourself who reads the newspaper? The answer could be, other students, teachers and parents.
Secondly, ask yourself, how should you address the reader? Here you can look at pronouns. For instance, using ‘you’ might mean that you want somebody to do something, where using ‘we’ means that you are including the reader in your text.
Thirdly, ask yourself what kind of language is appropriate? You should use more informal language for example, if the reader was a young person. Informal language means chatty and relaxed language. If you are writing to the Prime Minister, you would use more formal language. Formal language means polite and more serious language.
More guidance can be found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2nr9qt/revision/2