The Bursary Letter: Register and Dangling Modifier
At a school in Bamenda, a Form Five candidate is applying for a bursary offered by a local agro-industrial company. The instructions say the letter must be formal, must not exceed one page, and must include the applicant's address, the date, the recipient's address, a clear subject line, and a formal closing. The candidate's draft opens 'Hey Sir,' uses 'can't,' 'wanna,' and 'a lot of,' asks 'I am writing to beg for money for my fees,' and ends 'Cheers.' One sentence reads: 'Having failed mathematics twice, my father advised me to seek extra lessons.' The candidate has good grades in English but has never written a formal letter outside class notes. The teacher has one 30-minute lesson to help before the deadline, which is in two days.
1. The draft opens 'Hey Sir,' and closes 'Cheers.' Rewrite the salutation and closing in formal register, and explain why each change is needed.
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Hey Sir, fails on two counts: Hey is a conversational greeting, and Sir without a name or title is too vague for a named scheme. Use Dear Sir/Madam, if the director's name is unknown, or Dear Mr [Surname], if it is known. The comma is conventional in letters. Cheers is a leave-taking used with friends; it does not match a formal application. Use Yours faithfully, when the recipient is unnamed, or Yours sincerely, when the name is known. The change is not mere politeness: the bursary committee is judging the applicant's ability to follow instructions and to address an unfamiliar adult professionally. A formal opening and closing frame the whole letter and make the request for assistance easier to consider seriously.
2. Explain why the sentence 'Having failed mathematics twice, my father advised me to seek extra lessons' is ambiguous. Revise it in two different ways that produce two different meanings.
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The sentence begins with a participle phrase, Having failed mathematics twice. Grammatically, the subject of that phrase should be the subject of the main clause, which is my father. That produces the absurd reading that the father failed mathematics twice and then advised the candidate. The intended meaning is that the candidate failed. Revise as: Having failed mathematics twice, I was advised by my father to seek extra lessons. If the father's own failure is meant, write: Because my father had failed mathematics twice, he advised me to seek extra lessons. The first revision keeps the candidate as the subject; the second makes the father's experience the reason. The ambiguity matters because a reader may doubt the writer's control of English, which is exactly what a bursary letter must display.
3. The candidate asks whether 'beg for money' can stay because it shows humility. Decide and justify your decision.
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Beg for money should not stay. In formal written English, beg suggests street begging and extreme destitution; it can make the committee uncomfortable rather than sympathetic. The purpose is to persuade a selection panel that the candidate is a serious student with a specific need, not to display helplessness. Replace it with request financial assistance towards my school fees or apply for sponsorship of my fees. Humility is better shown by a polite, precise tone and by explaining the need and the candidate's results. The phrase also has a grammatical problem: beg for money for my fees is repetitive. A formal request names the purpose once and avoids emotional loading.