Level 2 - English Writing

Formal Letters, Informal Emails &

Reports
 Ground Rules

• Please turn notifications off on.

phone/emails/texts etc.
• Please give your full attention to the
session.
• Be considerate to others and don’t talk
over each other.
 Session Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to

• Assemble the layout of a formal letter

• Produce an informal email

• Produce an formal report

• Identify an exam style question and interpret

the marking scheme
 Formal Letters
One of the 2 tasks you may encounter on the writing test, could be to complete a
Formal Letter. This could be worth 21 marks (58% of the total test score)
Here are the areas that you will need to consider when planning your response in
order to gain maximum marks. A pass mark for the test is 21/36

SPAG. Is your Content. Have you

Layout. Have you
spelling, responded to the
set the letter out in
punctuation and question & added
the correct way?
grammar correct? enough content?

Language Features. Paragraphs. Has the most important Salutation/Sign off.

Have you used rule point been included in the first Have you used the
of three, rhetorical paragraph? Does each paragraph have correct greeting or
questions or direct its own main point? sign off?
address?
 Formal Letters
• Formal Letters are for people you don’t know
• Start with a formal greeting. For example ‘Dear
Mr Jones’ or ‘Dear Sir / Madam’
• End with ‘Yours sincerely’ if you know their name
of ‘Yours faithfully’ if you don’t
• Avoid slang, exclamation marks and
abbreviations
Formal Letters Clare Smith
6 Sunny View
Your
address
and date
need to
Use the left & right align functions Rosetown
go at the
Devon top right
EX10 7AB
12 th January 2020
Mr Beige
Recipient’s Devon County Council
address 1 Acacia Ave Formal
goes on left Exeter letters
EX1 1AB often
have a
Re: Parking Permits for Residents
Use subject
person’s Dear Mr Beige, heading
title and Introduce I’m sure I can speak for all Rosetown residents in saying that we
surname subject- were extremely happy to be given the opportunity to purchase a
in formal start with parking permit so that we could park freely in front of our own
letters a positive houses. However, since we ordered and paid for the permits on 1st
Give
December 2019 we have heard nothing from Devon County Council
detail
nor have we received our permits.
I would like to express my concern at the lack of progress that has
been made in distributing the new parking permits for residents of
Rosetown.
I appreciate that bringing a new system in can take time but we
Sign off ‘Yours would all like to know how much longer we will need to wait
sincerely’ if you and if we will be reimbursed for the daily parking fees we are
No
know the person’s currently paying.
capital
name. Use ‘Yours
I look forward to your response. letter on
faithfully’ if you do
sincerely
not know the Yours sincerely
person’s name.
Clare Smith
 Formal Letters – IPPPC principle

Apply this consideration to your writing test Planning!

Analyse the task What information have you been given? What
needs to be produced? (View, complaint, suggestion etc.)

Consider Think, ‘How does the information affect people, the

events or the community?’

Consider Think about the other side of the coin. Can you give
an alternative view point or a solution to the problem?

Order information to give a sequenced amount. Use IPPPC

principle to ensure sufficient content
 Formal Letters – IPPPC Principle

I – Introduction. Tell the

reader what you are
doing i.e. ‘I am writing to
complain about…’

P1 - Your first
paragraph should be
your main point.
(Remember spacing
between each
C – Conclusion - If a paragraph)
complaint, always stay calm
and non-threatening. Use P2 – Second paragraph would be
phrases such as ‘Thank you for your second response or idea
taking the time to consider my
views’ or ‘I hope this matter P3 – Try and think of an
can be settled amicably and I alternative idea or a suggestion as
look forward to your reply.’ to what you would like done for
your third paragraph
 Features of Text – Re-cap

Texts use different techniques to persuade and engage the reader

Texts use language techniques to create emphasis and get across

information

Use these techniques to show

finesse in your answers

Rule of three – ‘I was Direct Address - ‘You

Rhetorical Questions – ‘How
dismayed, upset and should donate £5 a
much longer will the residents
appalled by the month to the
have to put up with the
service…’ cause…’
noise?...’
Formal Letters – Exam Style Question

The exam question will

tell you what you need
to write! Don’t over
complicate it 
Formal Letters – Let’s Get Quizical!

Take a few moments to read

through the letter. There are
several errors! See how many
you can spot.
 • Postcode not in
Formal Letters – Let’s Get Quizical! capitals
• Date on the
wrong side
• Subject on the
wrong side
• Overuse of !!!
• Threatening
language
• Yours faithfully
• Capital letter on
sincerely
• Name not on
separate line
• Not enough
content
Informal Emails
 Informal Emails
One of the 2 tasks you may encounter on the writing test, could be to complete an
Informal Email. This will be worth 15 marks (42% of the total test score)
Here are the areas that you will need to consider when planning your response in
order to gain maximum marks. A pass mark for the test is 21/36

SPAG. Is your Content. Have you

Layout. Have you
spelling, responded to the
set the email out in
punctuation and question & added
the correct way?
grammar correct? enough content?

Tone. Have you Paragraphs. Does each paragraph have Salutation/Sign off.
recognised the right its own main point? Have you got to Have you used the
tone? Is it formal or the point quickly? correct greeting or
informal? sign off?
 Informal Emails
• When you email a company, someone you don’t
know or someone important use formal language
• Emails to family and friends can be informal
• Formal emails start with greetings such as ‘Good
Morning Mr Bond’ and end with ‘Kind regards’
• Informal emails can start with ‘Hi Lucy’ and can
end with a simple ‘Cheers’
Remember
to keep
Informal Emails The email address
of the person you
clear are writing to is
spacing normally
between completed for you
paragraphs

Subject -
What is the
email
about?

Content is often
much briefer in an
Nouns have email as opposed
capital letters! Is the
to a letter
email
formal or
informal?
Informal Emails
Write a response
to the email over
the page

Remember: Tone,
content, layout,
greetings, SPAG
and sign-off

You will need to

use // when
starting a new
paragraph
Informal Emails

Revision
Writing a report.
What should a report look like?
• Reports should have a title that is formal and
factual
• It should start with an introduction giving the
main facts about the topic
• Next should be an explanation of the current
situation
• Followed by a recommendation about what
should change
• To conclude it summarises the advantages of
the recommendation

Pearson Revise Edexcel 2017

• Title
• Introduction
• Explanation (of current situation)
• Recommendations
• Summary of recommendations
Lets look at an example of a report
 Can you name the
Writing Reports features of the report?
• Introdution
• This document presents a template for a short report in engineering and science. This format, which follows
principles in The Craft of Scientific Writing [1], is for reports in which the main text is no more than five pages.
Although this format does not include front matter such as a cover or table of contents, the format does
accommodate back matter such as appendices.
Title
• Explanation
• Similar to the professional formats in books and journals, this format calls for indenting all paragraphs. In
addition, for the text portion, you should use a serif typeface such as Times New Roman (12 points).
Introduction
However, for the title, the headings, and subheadings, a bold sans serif typeface such as Calibri is fine to use.
The line spacing for this paragraph is to be single-spaced at 1.15 spacing. Also, as in common in books and
formal reports, please do not skip lines between paragraphs.
• In this first section of the report, you should introduce the report and perhaps provide a summary of the
most important details. If you decide not to include a summary of the main results, then you would just name
this section “Introduction.” As a transition to the middle portion of the main text, you should include
sentences that map the remaining sections of the main text.
Explanation
• Recommendations
• In writing any report, you should support your claims with evidence from reference sources. For reference
listings in the text, this template follows the IEEE [#] format. Unlike publications in the humanities,
publications in engineering and science typically use brackets for reference listings because scientific writing
uses parentheses in so many other ways, such as identifying units and acronyms. Note that every reference
Recommendations
listing in the text corresponds to a reference citation at the end. Likewise, every citation at the end has at
least one reference listing in the document. In the references section at the end of the document, you will
find sample citations for a book [1], a journal article [2], a presentation [3], a company report [4], a patent [5],
an interview [6], a website [7], and a newspaper article [8].

• This section begins the middle of the main text in this short report. Note that all headings should be 12
points, flush left, and boldfaced. The heading can be either a sans serif typeface (as was chosen for the title
and the two headings here) or a serif typeface (as occurs in the text portion). However, the text must be a
What is missing?
serif type, as shown here. Use initial capitals for the title and headings. Note that the template inserts spacing
before the heading (the spacing equivalent to one skipped line) and no line skips afterwards. Also, note that
this short report format has no format for subheadings. If your report is so long that you need subheadings,
you should consider a long report format. Otherwise, use paragraphs to show the organization of the section.
Summary
 Re-cap Session Objectives

You should now be able to:

• Assemble the layout of a formal letter

• Produce an informal email

• Produce an formal report

• Identify an exam style question and interpret

the marking scheme
Chat box comments
Feedback for the session
Further research and resources
Common mistakes to avoid in a writing test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&
v=L19MWUk8WHo