TYPES OF WRITING TASKS
When we do a writing task we need to express our ideas in the specific type of writing required. This type of writing is like the wrapping paper which gives us the reason to write.
It is essential that we respect the conventions of the specific type of writing required.
The writing task can be in the form of a letter/email, an article, a composition (or essay) and a report.
LETTERS/EMAILS/POSTCARDS are written to a person (your pen friend, a newspaper editor) or a group of people (the students' society, the local football club) for a specific reason (e.g. to give advice, to make a complaint, to thank someone, to apologise, to accept/refuse invitations). They include:
• Informal fetters/emails to people you know well, written in a personal chatty style.
• Formal Ietters/emails to managers/officials etc, written in a polite formal style.
• Semi-formal letters/emails to people you do not know well or people you know but you want to sound polite and respectful e.g. a teacher, your pen friend's parents, and so on, written in a polite and respectful style.
ARTICLES are usually found in magazines and newspaper, but now with the proliferation of the internet, you may need to write a blog post on an internet forum. The following can be found in the form of an article:
• Descriptions of people, places, buildings, objects, festivals, ceremonies.
• Narratives about real or imaginary events which happened in the past. They can be written in the first person (first-person narratives) when the writer is the main character of the story or in the third person (third-person narratives) when the writer is describing events which happened to another person or group of people.
• News about current/recent events (e.g. fires, accidents) written in impersonal style. News reports present facts objectively and unemotionally.
• Reviews discussing a film, TV programme, book, restaurant, and so on, and recommending it or not to the reader.
The traditional COMPOSITIONS or ESSAYS are sometimes presented with the excuse that you have decided to take part in a composition competition, or your teacher has asked you to do so. These discursive compositions/essays present arguments concerning particular subjects. They include:
• Advantages and disadvantages compositions present the pros and cons on a specific topic.
• Opinion compositions present the writer's personal opinion on a specific topic.
• Solutions and problems compositions present a problem and its causes, making suggestions and mentioning the expected results and consequences.
• A composition/essay is sometimes part of a letter to the editor of a newspaper where the student gives their personal opinion and suggestions on a specific topic. This way, two different forms of writing are included in the same task.
• A variation of the COMPOSITION task is the WRITING A NOTE task, where we have to write a (usually) informal note to someone informing them about something, or giving them instructions on how to do something.
• Another variation is the DIARY ENTRY, where the student writes their feelings on a specific topic or situation.
REPORTS are formal pieces of writing and have a specific format and features. They include:
• Assessment reports discussing the suitability of a person, place, plan, etc for a particular purpose, job.
• Proposals reports discussing suggestions or decisions about future actions.
Before we start doing the writing task, we must be fully aware of the type of writing the task involves, and stick to it and its conventions.
Most of the information on this post comes from Successful Writing, Intermediate, Express Publishing
