Inform and Explain
Whatiswritingtoinform?
Where do you find language that informs?
•Newspaper Article.
•Magazine Articles.
•Information Leaflets.
•Football Reports
•School report.
•Bullying incident in school.
•Testing a new product.
•Details from a meeting or a debate.
Writing to inform is unbiased and does not give a point of view. It can be very ‘dry’ to read and it is often uninspiring. It is very factual. However, you will be asked in this exam to write with a purpose. All your information must stem from the non-fiction texts. You will be assessed by how well you include this factual information.
Languagetechniques
When you are ‘writing to inform’, you must consider:
- Are you providing the right amount of detail? Remember your audience and what they need or want to know!
- Are the details, whether facts or opinions, relevant __and __clear?
- Have you answered the big questions: who, what, where, when, how and why? Remember that it is a factual account and not an opinion piece.
How should you write?
| Feature to be included | What does it mean? | What is an example? | |||
| Information should usually be given in the present tense. | Give information about what is happening now so use; it is, they are, we will. | Shoppers now spend £1.6 billion a year on plastic products. | |||
| Use third person format. | John, Susan, he, she, they | John Donald buys non-plastic items for health reasons. | |||
| Information is supported by facts. | Facts are thing that can be proved often shown by numerical evidence. | There are 400 different types of plastic. | |||
| Use impersonal voice when writing to inform | Do not speak to the reader by using you or we. Avoid giving personal opinions e.g. I think… | Recycling occurs in the UK. | |||
| Give a clear introduction | Use who, what, when and where in your intro | ||||
| The structure should be organised. | Paragraphs should have sub-headings and begin with a topic sentence. |
Exampletext
“Simon Cowell is a TV personality. He has been a judge on television shows, such as ‘The X Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. Simon Cowell was born in 1959 in London. He has one child, who is called Eric, with his partner, Lauren Silverman.”
Note how the text is purely factual. It contains no opinions.
Createyourownwritingandassess
Use the following titles to write your own practice essays:
- Write a letter informing your local government of an environmental issue.
- Write an email informing a company of a recent problem with a product.
- Write a speech to the headteacher informing them of the issues in your school.
- What is the difference between writing to inform and writing to explain?
- What are the language features of writing to inform?
- What are the language features of writing to explain?
- What are the language features of writing to explain?