Form & Register

Form & Register 🎭

You can have the sharpest argument in the room, but write it in the wrong **voice**, and it falls flat. A slangy letter to an MP, a stiff blog for teenagers: both lose marks. This module locks in the last piece of the writing puzzle: nailing the **form** and pitching the **register**.

Two words that matter 📋

The task always names a **form** and implies an **audience**. Two things must fit them: • **Form**: the *type* of text: an article, a letter, a speech, a blog. Each has its own conventions. • **Register**: how *formal or informal* your language is.\n\nAO5 explicitly rewards matching both to the specified form and audience.

The usual forms 📰

Learn the conventions of the forms that come up most: • **Letter**: "Dear…", formal paragraphs, a sign-off ("Yours sincerely/faithfully"). • **Speech**: open by addressing the audience aloud, engage them, close by thanking them. • **Article**: a **headline**, maybe a subheading, then continuous prose. • **Blog / online article**: chatty, first-person, direct and informal.

Match the convention

The register dial 🎚️

Register runs from very **formal** to very **informal**: and you turn the dial to suit the reader. • **Formal**: full sentences, no slang or contractions, precise vocabulary (a letter to an official). • **Informal**: contractions, a chattier tone, direct "you" (a blog for teens).\n\nNeither is "better". The skill is matching the register to the audience.

Pitch the register

You are writing a speech for a school assembly of fellow students, persuading them to join a club. Which register fits best?

• Warm and lively, speaking directly to your peers, but still clear and structured
• Extremely formal and stiff, as if addressing a High Court judge
• Packed with slang and in-jokes only your closest friends would get
• Cold and impersonal, with no direct address at all

Write to your MP

An interactive activity.

Sincerely or faithfully? ✒️

A tiny convention examiners love to reward: • If you **named** the person ("Dear Ms Osei"), sign off **"Yours sincerely"**. • If you did **not** know the name (\"Dear Sir or Madam\"), sign off **\"Yours faithfully\"**.\n\nA neat memory hook: never two words starting with the same letter. **S**ir never goes with **s**incerely.

End it right

A formal letter begins "Dear Sir or Madam" because the writer does not know the name. How should it end?

• Yours faithfully
• Yours sincerely
• Yours truly
• Best wishes

Read the reader 🎯

Before you write a word, picture the **audience** and the **purpose**. A councillor wants respect and reason; teenage readers want energy and directness; a newspaper wants a confident, informed voice. The same viewpoint is dressed differently for each, and matching that voice is what pushes AO5 to the top band.

Rank the openings

An interactive activity.

In the exam 🎓

Voice mastered. Grade-9 habits for form and register: • **Read the task**: note the **form** and the **audience**, and follow the form's conventions (a letter's "Dear…" and sign-off, a speech's direct address, an article's headline). • **Pitch the register** to that audience. Formal for officials, lively for peers. Consistently throughout. • A mismatch (a slangy letter to an MP, a stiff blog for teens) caps your AO5 no matter how strong the argument.