Writing to Inform

Writing to Inform

You will find many examples of writing to inform all around you. These can be:

·         Recipes

·         Railway timetable

·         Book/ movie review

·         Travel brochure

·         Guide book

·         Letter to parents about a school trip

When writing to inform it is important that you think about the purpose and audience.

Purpose- What the writing is trying to do

Audience- Who the writing is aimed at

You will need to decide-

·         Is it formal or informal?

·         Does it use jargon (specialist terms)

·         Does it use slang?

·         How long is the piece?

·         Is it laid out in an appropriate manner for the audience?

·         Does it appeal to the target audience?

·         Is it complex or simple to follow?

·         How does the font (colour, size and style), pictures, backgrounds, etc create a particular impression?

Example-

The Mission Specialist opened the payload bay doors and used the RMS to deploy the satellite. This was only possible once the pilot had used the OMS to get the shuttle in to the correct position.

It is clear from this example that there is a lot of space and aviation terminology and many abbreviations and so this would be aimed at an audience who had prior knowledge in this area. The same information may be altered if the audience are not knowledgeable in this area:

The Mission Specialist, who is in charge of science experiments on board, opened the large doors of the shuttle and used the RMS (the long robotic arm) to launch the satellite in to orbit. Before this was possible the pilot had to move the shuttle in to the correct position by using the smaller engines that are near the nose of the shuttle.