Flo-Joe's FCE Show

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...