Adapting a news report for a school radio slot
A Year 12 student must adapt a 400-word written news report into a 90-second radio segment for her school. The written report is formal, with long sentences and passive constructions. The radio audience will hear it once, in a corridor with background noise, and cannot re-read it. The student has 90 seconds, which is roughly 200-220 spoken words at a comfortable pace. She wants to keep every fact from the original, including three statistics and two names. Her first draft is 300 words and sounds like reading aloud from the page.
1. What should the student cut first, and why?
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She should cut formal written scaffolding before cutting facts: long introductory clauses, passive constructions that hide the actor, and repeated background that listeners already know.
Her draft is 300 words for a 90-second slot, so she is roughly 80-100 words over. That gap is about the size of the written-style padding, not the size of the facts. The three statistics and two names are the core content and should stay, because they are what the audience cannot infer.
The judgement is to prioritise what a listener needs on one hearing: who did what, the key numbers, and why it matters. Written formality is not content. Removing it gets her close to the time limit without losing information.
2. Her draft opens with a long passive sentence. Rewrite the opening in one or two short active sentences, and explain the change.
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A model rewrite: 'The school canteen will change its menu in March. Students voted for the change last week.'
The original passive opening delays the actor and makes the listener wait for the point. On radio, the first sentence must tell listeners what the story is about, because they cannot scan back. Short active sentences do that.
The change also improves clarity in noise. A listener in a corridor may miss a word; short sentences give more chances to recover the thread. The rewrite keeps the facts (the canteen, March, the student vote) while removing the written scaffolding.