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GCSE: Writing to Inform, Explain and Describe

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Writing to inform

  1. 1 Give factual information and use a formal style.
  2. 2 Use straightforward language to convey essential information. Your audience could be anyone.
  3. 3 Use the present tense, write in short clear sentences, address the reader as 'you'. Use connectives and technical terms.
  4. 4 Break up your writing with diagrams, illustrations, images and subheadings.
  5. 5 You can give more information (eg: why and what you find interesting) and the genre could ask you to give instructions, write recipes, give directions or write manuals.

Writing to explain

  1. 1 Establish who you are writing to and why you are writing.
  2. 2 Genre – Explaining data, giving a speech or explaining how a mechanism works.
  3. 3 Purpose – To be clear, to show meaning and to make something clearer.
  4. 4 Write in the third person, use either past or present tenses, use clear factual language.
  5. 5 Give a balanced view and use connectives of comparison (whereas, though, while, unless, however).

Writing to describe

  1. 1 Your thoughts and feelings are important.
  2. 2 Genre – Writing a story, describe a scene, writing a diary entry.
  3. 3 Purpose is to build an image in the reader's mind.
  4. 4 Use adjectives and adverbs, similes, metaphors and all five senses ( touch, smell, taste, sight, sound).

  • Marked by Teachers essays 61
  • Peer Reviewed essays 37

  1. My constant came in the form of a boyfriend, stayed with me for three years and then left me to pick myself up piece by piece.

    Always laughing, smiling and pulling pranks on each other. In grade 10 science out of nowhere, I decided to have a water fight with him right in the middle of class. I channelled my inner Athena, pulled my hood over my head pretending that it was my warrior helmet and took my spear - which in this case was my water bottle - and set out onto the battlefield. I had snuck up on him and “lightly sprinkled” water over his head and was super proud of my sneak attack.

    • Word count: 1744

  2. Creating writing - describe a place you think is beautiful.

    As i sit on the edge of the rocky cliff, i truly appreciate what beauty nature is! My eyes peer over to the valley, where i can here the noise of laughter from young children playing along the beach creating lifetime memories ; as the paranoid mother shouts at them to come back home in time for dinner. While others would find this annoying and abrupt, i feel a flashback of the beautiful times i once had here as a child.

    • Word count: 403

  3. GCSE Imaginative Writing: Write a short story set in a maximum security penitentary

    I quickly loaded two rounds into the first and second chamber, afterwards placing it back in its sheath. I checked my watch; 23:45. It was almost time. Jenkins left the Inn as expected. He was a very, very tall man, dressed in baggy trousers and a stained white shirt with the top button undone. He walked slowly and clumsily, carrying a small, leather briefcase in his left hand. This is him. This is the man I was about to kill. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. The brutal, bitter downpour hammered against the concrete, overpowering any other sound that dare challenge it.

    • Word count: 829

  4. Retelling Little Red Riding Hood with a Malaysian twist

    • Word count: 1338

  5. The horrors of the aged house still hound me

    • Word count: 507

  6. English short story-The place was lifeless and quiet; you couldnt hear a sound until a man emerged from the dark and made his way to the large rocks beneath the waterfall.

    • Word count: 1094

  7. Write a story about a person who lost all his possession while helping other people.

    • Word count: 658

  8. Infected - creative writing. Even the dim-witted early men predicted that human intemperance would eventually lead to their own extinction

    • Word count: 832

  9. Identity. Tugging my bag onto the shoulder of my ironed blue uniform, I set off towards the crime scene.

    • Word count: 956

  10. The fog grabbed onto the freezing air, the snow slept on the houses

    All I can hear is the snow crunching beneath my feet as I dreadfully walk step by step over and over. I shouldn?t have done that I thought, all these thoughts circled my head, over and over ?why did I do it?? I cried, I felt a chill go down my spine as my voice rasped through the dark, cold and empty night.

    • Word count: 401

  11. Speech about Gaming PC's

    A graphic card has lots of processors that send data to one chip to another. These chips start to heat up, so a cooling fan is attached to these cards, so the chips stay cool and process at super speeds. If a game is played using an old graphics card, then the games starts to lag, and you don?t get smooth game play. This means the graphics card starts to go under pressure and it can?t handle all the data that is sent through the chips.

    • Word count: 654

  12. Learning a Lesson. My irritation reached a fervor as I stood up to challenge him. Being only two years apart, we had competed at almost everything since childhood,

    Being only two years apart, we had competed at almost everything since childhood, be it Yu-Gi-Oh matches in our primary years to playing tennis and basketball matches in our adolescent years. Though he was older, I had a size advantage and possessed the aggressiveness that accompanies a younger sibling?s temperament. ?Why do you care? Not everyone is a math genius like you.? He simply said, ?You can do better.? My brother was considered a math prodigy at our high school.

    • Word count: 652

  13. Story with language analysis. Katie helped Eduardo down the stairs. He was such an old bear that a lot of his stuffing had come out,

    The plush bear [h]had belonged to her father, and before that, to her grandmother as it has been passed down from one generation to the next. [i]Originally, he had been called "Eduardo"? but when her father was little, he found it hard to say ?Edgardo?, so he called his teddy ?Eduardo?[j]. As Katie liked that name and thought the name really suited him considering that he was a cuddly, affectionate and adorable teddy bear[k]. Katie leaned forward and whispered very quietly [l]to the bear, ?Eduardo![m] Where are you going?? Eduardo stopped halfway drowsily to the bedroom door and followed her voice.

    • Word count: 1067

  14. English Language - story of disappointment

    Would you like that?? Robert completely ignored his mother's question and poured cereal and milk into a bowl. ?Robert, please don't ignore me. Ya know, you're not the only one suffering here; I've been depressed too since your father...? Robert's mother uttered but Robert cut in before she could finish her sentence. ?Don?t speak of him.? Robert ordered ?Don't speak of that Degenerate in this house!? Robert punched the table and his mother flinched. ?Robert! Calm down!? his mother plead, tearing up.

    • Word count: 1041

  15. Dear Diary - creative writing set in the Great Depression

    Maybe we shall become millionaires overnight or maybe we shall become a family without a home to go to. As Anne was crying, I went downstairs to tell ma and father. When I was walking down the stairs, I heard ma crying her heart out and even crying more than Anne! I peeped through the hole in the door. I saw father tell ma that the society is becoming more competitive to the job market- so this is why father can?t get a job. I know have realised that there was no chance of father getting a job due to the amount of unemployment that were looking for work.

    • Word count: 1647

  16. A Narrative of when I was particularly nervous

    This is it. This is really happening. The windows shrieks as it recedes into the door. A forceful blast of cold, winter air slams into my drenched face, sending beads of cold sweat that were settling on my water flying into the car seat, and soaking into the warm, depressed fabric. I look ahead and see endless rows of red, piercing flares ahead of our car. Yes! There?s been a pile up. My saviour. I sigh a heavy breath of relief as the sweat dries off my coated palms and shimmering face.

    • Word count: 489

  17. Description of a City - Tokyo

    To the right, I could see the emperor?s home in the middle of a park?s lake, the Imperial Palace. I was enjoying the silence until the driver bombarded me with questions in a language I had merely heard in anime shows I occasionally saw on TV when I was a child. He wouldn?t stop talking until I arrived at my destination, even though I didn?t say a single word in reply.

    • Word count: 462
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Conclusion analysis

Good conclusions usually refer back to the question or title and address it directly - for example by using key words from the title.
How well do you think these conclusions address the title or question? Answering these questions should help you find out.

  1. Do they use key words from the title or question?
  2. Do they answer the question directly?
  3. Can you work out the question or title just by reading the conclusion?

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Peer reviewed

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