Paper 2 Writing: producing texts that fit a brief
Paper 2 Writing tests whether you can produce whole texts that fit a brief. In the directed task you are given a purpose, an audience and a form - a letter to an editor, a speech to a school council, an article for a magazine - and sometimes source material to draw on; you must adopt the required voice and conventions. In the composition you choose between narrative/descriptive and argumentative/discursive prompts.
Write to the brief
Genre conventions earn marks quickly: a letter has an address, salutation and sign-off; a speech uses direct address, rhetorical questions and a closing call to action; an article carries a headline and subheading. Register must match tenor - no contractions in a formal letter to a council, no academic jargon in a school newsletter.
Shape the whole text
Plan in three moves: an opening that hooks and establishes the issue, body paragraphs with topic sentences and one idea each, and an ending that returns to the opening image or makes an explicit request. Vary sentence length deliberately: a short sentence after two long ones lands a point.
Argument and description
Argumentative writing needs a thesis, evidence, a concession ('Critics claim... and there is force in this') and a rebuttal. Discursive writing explores both sides without a fixed stance. Both need connectives showing logical relationships rather than listing. Descriptive and narrative writing needs sensory detail, a controlled viewpoint and consistent tense; reveal character through action rather than stacked adjectives.
Worked example
Flat: 'The market was busy and it smelled nice.' Revised: 'Under the tarpaulin the air was thick with frying onions; a trader sang prices over the crowd's low rumble.' Reasoning: the revision replaces evaluation ('nice') with sensory evidence, uses a semicolon to balance two clauses, and gives the reader specific detail to hear and smell. That is showing rather than telling - and it is the detail, not the adjective, that earns credit.
Traps
- Writing a speech when the brief asks for an article.
- Rhetorical questions in every paragraph until they lose force.
- An argument with no counter-argument, or a conclusion that merely repeats the introduction.
- Narrative that summarises plot rather than building a scene; description with no movement in time.
- Register slips: slang in a formal piece, or stiff over-formality in a personal one.