Proofreading a Grama Panchayat Medical Camp Notice
A first-year degree student volunteering with the Vengola grama panchayat is asked to proofread a public notice before it is printed and pasted on the office board. The health department has drafted the notice for a free medical camp. The draft reads: 'NOTICE - All the residents are hereby informed that a free medical camp will be conducting at the Primary Health Centre, Vengola, on 15 August from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The camp is organise by the Health Department in association with the Local Self Government. Peoples of all age groups are requested to attend with their Aadhaar card. There is no fees for consultation. Informations regarding the camp can be obtained from the health inspector. Kindly do the needful and cooperate. - Secretary, Grama Panchayat.' The secretary wants the notice to remain short, factual and formal, and has asked the student to list the errors rather than silently rewrite the whole text.
1. Identify five grammatical errors in the draft and correct them with a brief reason for each.
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- will be conducting → will be conducted. The camp does not conduct itself; the passive form is needed because the Health Department conducts it.
- is organise → is organised. The passive requires the past participle, not the base verb.
- Peoples → People. 'People' is already plural in this sense. 'Peoples' means ethnic or national groups, which is not intended here.
- There is no fees → There is no fee (or 'There are no fees'). The verb and noun must agree in number; the singular 'fee' is the cleaner formal choice.
- Informations → Information. 'Information' is an uncountable noun in standard English and has no ordinary plural form.
A further improvement is 'All the residents → All residents', which is tighter official style, though it is not a serious grammatical error.
2. Rewrite the closing sentence 'Kindly do the needful and cooperate' in formal official English.
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A suitable rewrite is: 'Residents are requested to cooperate with the Health Department.'
The original is informal and dated. 'Kindly do the needful' is vague: it does not tell the reader what action is required. In a public notice, the instruction should name the action and the person responsible. If the intended meaning is that residents should attend and follow instructions, a clearer version is: 'Residents are requested to attend the camp and cooperate with the staff.' This keeps the notice short, uses the passive 'are requested' customary in official notices, and avoids the unclear 'do the needful'.
3. A volunteer argues that 'informations' is correct because more than one piece of information is being given. Explain the count/mass noun issue.
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The argument confuses the number of facts with the grammar of the noun. 'Information' is a mass noun in standard English: it does not take a plural -s when it refers to facts or details. We say 'some information', 'a piece of information' or 'two pieces of information', not 'informations'.
If the notice wants to stress several items, it can use 'Details regarding the camp...' or 'Further information...'. 'Informations' does occur in some technical or legal contexts, but it is not standard in a public notice and would look like an error to an examiner. The safe correction is therefore 'Information regarding the camp can be obtained from the health inspector.'