“When you give the highest grade to a student you need to be sure he earned it. I read a student's essay on Monday and realized that he had taken in all of my feedback and written a wonderful little essay. It was clear that he had understood the assignment now and that he really cared about making it better. It´s also clear that this was a subject he enjoyed writing about. So, after re-reading it a couple of times, I decided he was worthy of an MVG. However, I can't stop but wonder why I had to think about so much, was it because of this essay or because he had done so poorly in the past?”
“Improvements in sexual and reproductive health and rights are necessarily to accelerate the attainment of the millennium development goals. Lack of contraceptive use increases sexual transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies causing public health problems as HIV/AIDS and unsafe abortions. Young people are a high risk group to these problems why it is important to get a deeper understanding of perceptions on contraceptives and abortion in this group”
The first of these two texts is written in an informal way (in a blog) while the second is a formal article. The features that distinguish these two types of texts are:
* The contractions: in the informal text contractions like can´t and it´s can be found, while such contractions are avoided in the formal text and replaced by its whole form: it is
* The informal text are written personal (I read, I decided) while the informal text is written in a more objective or impersonal way
* The informal text uses pronouns (when you give)
* There are differences in the vocabulary, the formal text includes more academic and complicated words and expressions (improvements, contraceptive) while the words and expressions used in the informal text are more common in everyday situation.
* The use of words as so and however that does not have an important meaning itself in the informal text.
* The length of the sentences: longer in the formal text than in the informal one
A book review
Informal
One of my favorite books is the series about Stockholm, written by Per-Olof Fogelström. It´s written in the sixties and consists of five quite thin books. The series describes life in Stockholm from the middle of the 19th century to about hundred years later. Even though it includes political events it is not a series of factual study but a book about the everyday people and their struggles with relations, poverty, isolation and the will to change their situation. These five books really hit my fancy and I can highly recommend you to read it!
Formal
The series about Stockholm, written by Per-Olof Fogelström is a novel about the development of a capital city and the situation of its people. The first of five books takes place in the middle of the 19th century when a young man is moving to find happiness in the city of his dreams, Stockholm. The five books follow the young man and his descendents in both prosperities and adversities and ends more than hundred years later in a society that is industrialized and modernized. The series was written in 1960.
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Nice work Teresia! Your list of the features that distinguish formal and informal types of writing is absolutely great.
SvaraRaderaIt is interesting to note that your informal texts are not VERY informal. The blog text is apparently written by a (language) teacher, which perhaps explains why it is quite elegant and sophisticated for a blog. Your own informal text is more informal than the formal version of the same text in the sense that it is personal and contains a couple of non-standard expressions (for instance THE everyday people), but again, part of it is written in more formal language (factual study, highly recommend etc). Your formal text contains an agreement error ("The five books follow... and endS") which is not acceptable in formal types of writing.