Directed and Transactional Writing
What is being tested
Directed writing asks you to produce a real-world text - letter, email, report, article, speech, notice, leaflet, review - for a specified audience, purpose and format. Marks come from content (all required points covered), organisation (paragraphing, sequence, linking), register and tone (formal, semi-formal, persuasive, sympathetic) and accuracy.
Concepts you must control
- Audience awareness: a letter to a headteacher differs sharply from one to a friend.
- Conventions: letters need addresses, date, salutation and sign-off; reports need a title, headings and a conclusion; speeches need a greeting and direct address; articles need a headline and sometimes subheadings.
- Purpose: to persuade, complain, inform, request, advise or thank. Each has its own phrase bank.
- Cohesion: connectives (however, furthermore, as a result, in addition) and pronoun reference.
- Formal register: no contractions, no slang, no exclamation marks in a formal complaint.
Traps that appear in questions
- Missing a bullet point. Examiners count required content; tick each one off.
- Wrong format. Writing a letter as continuous prose with no address or sign-off.
- Register slip. “I'm really fed up” in a formal letter.
- Inventing irrelevant content instead of developing the given points.
- No paragraphing, making the piece hard to follow.
- Sign-off mismatch: Yours sincerely when the name is unknown, or Yours faithfully when it is known.
Worked example
Task: write a letter to the principal persuading her to extend library hours. Opening: “Dear Mrs Okafor, I am writing to urge the school to extend library opening hours, as current closing times leave many students without a quiet place to study.” Purpose stated, formal register, no contractions, respectful tone. Each following paragraph develops one reason and one piece of evidence.
Rule of thumb
Before writing, note in the margin: audience, purpose, format, three to five content points. Tick each as you use it.