The Notice Board Correction
Candidate scenario: You are helping a Class X student revise a notice for the school notice board. The student has written: 'Notice - A water bottle is found in the playground yesterday. Whoever is owner should collect it from the office before 4 PM. It is blue colour with a broken cap. By order of the Headmaster.' The notice must be impersonal, accurate, and clear to students and staff. The lost bottle is actually a steel bottle with a blue cap, not a blue bottle; the student wrote from memory and is unsure whether it was found during the morning assembly or after the games period. The office closes at 4:00 p.m., but the peon leaves at 3:45 p.m. You have ten minutes to finalise the text, and the student wants to keep the phrase 'Whoever is owner' because it sounds official. You must decide what information can be stated, what must be checked, and how to revise the notice without inventing facts.
1. Identify three language problems in the draft and explain how each affects clarity or accuracy.
Read the worked answer
- Tense mismatch:
is found ... yesterdaymixes present passive with a past time marker. A notice describes a completed discovery, sowas found yesterdayis accurate. If the notice is posted later,was found on ...is safer. - Missing article and awkward clause:
Whoever is ownerlacksthebeforeownerand is not idiomatic.The ownerorAnyone who owns the bottleis clearer. The error matters because the notice must tell a specific person what to do. - Unidiomatic description and possible factual error:
blue colouris not standard English;blueorwith a blue capis better. More importantly, the student's phrase suggests the whole bottle is blue, while the confirmed fact is a steel bottle with a blue cap. Accuracy outranks keeping the student's wording.
2. Rewrite the notice in 40–50 words, using only confirmed facts and a formal, impersonal tone.
Read the worked answer
Notice
A steel water bottle with a blue cap was found in the playground yesterday. The owner should collect it from the school office before 3:45 p.m.
By order of the Headmaster
Reasoning: I keep the confirmed object (steel ... blue cap), the confirmed place (playground), and the earlier deadline (3:45 p.m.) because the peon leaves then. I avoid naming a precise discovery time because the student is unsure. I use passive was found and The owner should to keep the notice impersonal. I do not say blue bottle, which would repeat the student's factual slip. The notice is about 42 words.
3. The student wants to keep `Whoever is owner` because it sounds official. Decide whether to keep it and justify your decision.
Read the worked answer
Do not keep it. Official tone in a school notice comes from brevity, passive voice, and an impersonal address to readers, not from grammatical error. Whoever is owner is missing the article and sounds like a direct translation. It may also confuse readers about whether the writer doubts who owns the bottle. Use The owner should ... or Anyone who owns the bottle should .... The second option is slightly longer but clearer; the first is better under a ten-minute deadline and a short notice. The student's intention-formality-is right, but the form is wrong.