Episode 1: Formal x Informal Language

Hi Guys. Welcome to Flo-Joe’s FCE Show, where we aim to help you on the road to success in the Cambridge FCE exam. In this new series of shows, we’re looking at helping you avoid the typical mistakes made by students preparing for the FCE Writing Paper. In this first episode we’ll be looking at a very frequent mistake students make - getting the level of formality wrong. In the next few minutes I’ll show you three things to avoid on the big day.

Hi guys. My name’s Peter Travis from Flo-Joe and welcome to the very first of this new series of shows helping you face the FCE Writing paper with confidence. In these short podcast and video shows we’re looking at the common mistakes we see in students written work - these are mistakes we’ve seen in writing that’s been sent to Flo-Joe by students who’ve signed up for our Writing Critique and Correction service. I’ll give you some details about this service later - just in case you’re interested in signing up yourself.

Today we’re focussing on something that we see again and again: students who get the level of formality wrong. Why is this important? Well, one of the areas you're graded on in the Writing Paper is communicative achievement. One of the things communicative achievement covers is how well you get the correct level of formality or register in your writing. Basically, you need to be able to communicate in a way that’s right for the audience - the person reading your work. That’s not the examiner but the person or people identified in the task. So you definitely don’t want a formal register if you’re writing to a friend or relative, but then again you don’t want to be informal if you’re writing to someone in authority like your boss or an academic text like an essay for your teacher.

Let’s start with a very common mistake. You’d be surprised how often we see this one in students’ written work. Let’s imagine you’re writing a letter of application or a letter of complaint. You’ve come to the end of the letter and you want to say that you hope to get a reply from the person you’re writing to. Obviously, this is a formal or semi-formal letter, so which of the following sentences would you write?

a) I look forward to hearing from you.
b) I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

If you said ‘a’, ‘I look forward to hearing from you’, well done! This is the formal way of writing this. “I’m looking forward to” is more informal and perfect if you’re writing to a friend or relative. So that’s an easy one to start with. Remember, ‘I look forward to’ is formal, ‘I’m looking forward to’ is informal.

That brings me nicely to the second area that comes up again and again in work students send us - contractions - things like ‘I’m’ instead of ‘I am’ or ‘he’s’ instead of ‘he is’ or ‘it’s’ rather than ‘it is’. Contractions are a great way to make your writing seem as if you’re speaking to the reader and help create a friendly, chatty style. They’re perfect for informal letters or emails and they can also make articles and reviews more engaging and interesting to read. But you must be careful - this does depend on who the audience is. If you’re writing an article or review for a student magazine for example, you want to keep it relatively informal - and contractions would be one way to achieve this. But what about a review or an article for a professional magazine? This might need a slightly more formal tone. Basically, read the task carefully check you’re clear who the audience is and decide what’s best! And one final thing on the subject of contractions: don’t use them in essays and think carefully before using them in proposals or reports, which are often semi-formal. Once again, it comes down to the audience, the people or the person who’ll be reading your work. If the report’s for your boss, keep it semi-formal and avoid contractions, if it’s for your colleagues at work, a friendly, slightly less formal style using contractions might be better.

And finally, we often see this next one in students’ work - vocabulary and choosing the wrong words. As you know, some words and expressions are informal in tone. Words or expressions like ‘fantastic’, ‘telly’ compared to ‘television’ and ‘I mean’ instead of ‘I think’. At the same time, there are words and expressions that are far more formal in tone like ‘thus’ or ‘regarding’ or ‘in conclusion’. Students often get this wrong and use formal words in informal letters and emails and informal words and expressions in more formal pieces of writing.

For example, in a letter of application that was sent to us a student wrote:
"I am really interested in your course advertised in the recent issue of Language Matters."
Obviously we need a semi-formal tone in a letter of application so it would be better to leave ‘really’ out and instead of ‘I am really interested’, just write ‘I am interested’.
Here’s another example from later in the same letter:
"I run a Summer Sport Show for kids aged 12 to 15 every year."
‘Kid’s’ is an informal word - ‘children’ would be better in a letter like this.
Now here’s an example from a report that was written to a committee who are organising an event:
"I am writing this report to recommend a couple of brilliant places for visitors to our city."
‘A couple of’ and ‘brilliant’ are slightly informal in tone and would be better as ‘some’ or ‘several’ or ‘a selection of’ and perhaps ‘suitable’ instead of ‘brilliant’. So something like ‘several suitable places’ would gain more marks in letter like this.
And what do you think could be improved in this sentence, again from the same report?
"Music is played on four stages over two days, which is awesome entertainment."
If you said ‘awesome’ well done. This again is too informal for a report to a committee and would be better as ‘excellent entertainment’.
And finally, the following appeared in an essay:
"But I think one fundamental reason lies in economic conditions."
Yes, of course ’But’, would be OK in an informal piece of writing, but in an essay ‘However’ is better.

There are other things to consider with formal and informal language. Longer, more complicated sentences using various linking words and relative clauses often appear in formal writing. On the other hand, writers often miss words out in informal writing like ‘Having a great time’. ‘Wish you were here’. You’ll also find things like exclamation marks used in informal writing but which definitely shouldn’t be used in formal texts. We might look again at some of these in a later show. But for the time-being try keeping a record of formal and informal vocabulary during your exam preparation. Two columns in a notebook will be perfect for this. List informal words on one side and formal on the other. For example, ‘start’ and ‘commence’, ‘put up with’ and ‘tolerate’

Don’t be too critical of yourself up if you’re in the habit of making these mistakes in your writing - using contractions incorrectly is certainly not the worst mistake you can make. But it will be very useful in your exam if you appreciate how these things can effect formality.

If you really want to work on improving your Writing and you want personalised feedback on how well you’re doing, I promised at the beginning of the show I’d give you some information about our Writing Critique and Correction service that we offer to FCE students. The best way to find out more is to head over to the Flo-Joe website. You’ll find a link to further information on the website homepage - you’ll need to scroll down a little to find the link. The website - for those who don’t know is www.flo-joe.co.uk When you get there just scroll down to ‘Writing Critique and Correction’ and you’ll find a link to a page that should answer all your questions. I’ll also post a link in the show notes below:
http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/newsletter/fce/fcewriting.htm

And if this is your first time here I’d love to have you sign up so I can continue to try to help you be successful with FCE.

OK that’s all for now. Listen out for the next of our shows coming up next week.

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