Editing a School Magazine Report: Tense, Voice, and Reported Speech
Ananya, the literary club secretary, has drafted a report for the school magazine on the inter-school debate held on 12 August. The magazine editor will publish it only if it is 120–150 words, uses past tense consistently, avoids unnecessary passive voice, and reports speech accurately. The draft contains these sentences: (i) 'The debate was organised by the Literary Club, and the topic had been "Social media does more harm than good".' (ii) 'The principal said that the event is a landmark in the school's history.' (iii) 'Each speaker were given four minutes, and the judges, after they had listened to both sides, were announcing the result.' (iv) 'It was felt by the judges that the opposition team had presented stronger evidence.' (v) 'The winning team was congratulated, and they have promised to prepare for the district round.' Ananya wants to keep a formal tone and does not want to change the order of information.
1. Correct sentences (ii), (iii), and (v), giving a reason for each change.
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(ii) Change 'is' to 'was': 'The principal said that the event was a landmark in the school's history.' In reported speech after a past reporting verb, the present tense normally shifts back unless the statement remains a general truth. A one-day event is not a permanent truth, so backshift is required.
(iii) Change 'Each speaker were given' to 'Each speaker was given' because 'each' is singular. Change 'were announcing the result' to 'announced the result': the past continuous suggests an action in progress at a particular moment, but the result was announced at a completed point after the judging. Simple past is the natural narrative tense.
(v) Change 'have promised' to 'had promised' (or 'promised') to keep the report in the past. 'They' is also awkward because 'team' is singular in this formal report; write 'the team was congratulated, and its members promised...' if the members are meant. The correction is not just mechanical: it keeps the timeline clear.
2. Rewrite sentence (iv) in the active voice. Then decide whether any passive in the report is justified, and explain your decision.
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Active rewrite: 'The judges felt that the opposition team had presented stronger evidence.' This is shorter, names the agent, and makes the judgement clearly the judges' opinion rather than an impersonal fact. 'It was felt by the judges' adds words and slightly hides responsibility.
A passive can still be justified in (i): 'The debate was organised by the Literary Club.' The report's topic is the debate, so the event is a reasonable subject; the agent is also given, so nothing is concealed. The passive is not there to dodge responsibility. By contrast, (iv) uses passive with a vague 'it' subject and a known agent, which is exactly the kind of unnecessary passive the editor is asking Ananya to remove. The test is: does the passive keep the focus on the event, or does it merely inflate the sentence? (i) passes that test; (iv) does not.
3. Ananya also wants to shorten the report without losing information. Suggest how she could combine (i) and (ii) into one formal sentence, and state one risk in doing so.
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Combined sentence: 'The Literary Club organised a debate on 12 August on the topic "Social media does more harm than good", which the principal later called a landmark in the school's history.' This removes repetition, keeps the date and topic, and reports the principal's comment accurately with backshift ('called').
Risk: Combining can blur the sequence. The original says the principal spoke about the event; the combined version places the comment after the debate, which is accurate only if that is when the principal spoke. If the principal spoke at the opening, the sentence would misrepresent the order. Ananya should therefore check the programme before combining. Also, 'which' could be read as referring to the topic rather than the debate, so a careful writer might write '...and the principal later called the debate a landmark...'. Combining is useful, but it must not create a false timeline or an ambiguous referent.