One Set of Facts, Three Genres: Notice, Letter, Report
As secretary of the Eco Club you have these facts: a sample from the school water cooler, tested on 3 August, showed a coliform count of 42 per 100 ml against the BIS requirement of nil; the PTA meets on 12 August; the school magazine goes to press on 20 August; the cooler was serviced on 27 July by a named contractor. Your teacher asks for three pieces of writing from the same facts: (i) a notice for the noticeboard, (ii) a letter to the editor of a local daily, (iii) a report for the school magazine. A classmate submits three documents that are nearly identical: all begin 'This is to inform all concerned that…', all name the contractor, and all run to about 150 words with the same level of detail. The teacher says the facts are right and the writing is wrong.
1. Explain what must change across the three documents - audience, purpose, person, tense, length - and what must not change.
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Constant across all three: the test date, the coliform figure, the BIS standard, the PTA date, and the fact that the matter is unresolved. Everything else must change.
- Notice: third person, heading, date, one instruction and one deadline, under 50 words. Its job is compliance, not persuasion, and it should not accuse anyone.
- Letter to the editor: first person, present tense, a specific grievance and a request, closing with your name and designation. It may quote the figure but must explain the BIS standard for a general reader. Naming a contractor in a public letter is a defamation risk and is unnecessary - 'the agency that serviced the cooler' makes the point.
- Report: past tense, third person, headline, attributed statements ('the secretary said…'), no direct appeal to the reader.
The classmate's error is a genre error. 'This is to inform all concerned' is a notice opener; in a letter it is throat-clearing, and in a report it is the wrong person speaking.
2. Draft the notice in under 50 words and state which facts you dropped and why.
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Draft (46 words):
GHS Library Hall - 5 August. Tests on 3 August showed unsafe coliform levels in the water cooler. Students are advised not to drink from it until further notice. The matter will be placed before the PTA on 12 August. - Secretary, Eco Club
Dropped: the exact count of 42, the contractor's name, and the definition of the BIS standard.
Why: a noticeboard reader needs the instruction and the date, not the microbiology. The precise figure invites argument ('how unsafe?') at the moment when the only correct action is to stop drinking. Dropping the contractor avoids publishing an accusation before the PTA has heard an explanation. Keeping the test date and the PTA date preserves accountability, which is what a notice is judged on. With a 50-word ceiling, words spent on the standard would be words taken from the instruction.
3. Rewrite the opening of the letter to the editor, and decide whether the coliform figure belongs there.
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Rewrite: 'Sir, Water from the cooler in our school library, tested on 3 August, showed 42 coliform organisms per 100 ml, against a BIS requirement of nil. The cooler has still not been sealed.'
Why it works: it begins with the fact, not with the act of writing; the figure in the first sentence gives the editor a reason to read on; the standard is explained in five words instead of a sentence.
Should the figure be included? Yes, in the letter, for three reasons: it turns a complaint into evidence, it is verifiable, and no newspaper prints 'the water is dirty'. It should not be included in the notice, where it would only delay the instruction. Matching the level of detail to the reader is precisely the skill being tested - the same facts, differently weighted, is the difference between three good documents and three copies of one.