Editing a Notice: When Two Forms Are Grammatically Possible
A student is editing a lost-and-found notice for the school office. The notice will be read on Wednesday morning. Draft:
All students are requested to note that a blue water bottle ___ (was found / has been found) near the library on Monday. The bottle, along with two notebooks, ___ (was / were) handed to the office. Students who ___ (lose / have lost) items should contact the office by Friday. Neither the bottle nor the notebooks ___ (has / have) been claimed. The office ___ (requests / is requesting) students to collect their belongings before the vacation.
The student's teacher says that for two blanks both forms are grammatically possible, but one is better because of the notice's purpose and time frame. The student must also decide whether to keep the passive voice in the second sentence.
1. Choose the better form for the first blank and justify it using the notice's date and purpose. Then say why the other form is not wrong.
Read the worked answer
'Has been found' is better. The notice is read on Wednesday and the bottle was found on Monday; the present perfect links the past finding to the present situation - the bottle is still in the office and can be claimed. 'Was found' is not grammatically wrong; it reports a finished past event. But it loses the 'still relevant now' meaning that the notice needs, since the purpose is to get students to come forward.
2. For 'The bottle, along with two notebooks, ___ handed to the office,' a classmate says 'were' because there are three items. Decide and explain the agreement rule in your own words.
Read the worked answer
Use 'was.' The subject is 'the bottle' (singular). 'Along with two notebooks' is a parenthetical addition, not a second subject joined by 'and.' The verb agrees with the head noun. If the writer wanted a plural verb, the sentence would need to be 'The bottle and two notebooks were handed to the office.' The classmate is counting items rather than identifying the grammatical subject.
3. The student must choose between 'requests' and 'is requesting' in the last sentence, and also decide whether to keep the passive 'are requested' in the first. What register does a school notice need, and how does that guide both choices?
Read the worked answer
A school notice needs a formal, impersonal, concise register. That favors 'requests' over 'is requesting': simple present is the conventional notice form, while the progressive sounds conversational and temporary. It also favors keeping 'are requested' in the first sentence: the passive makes the directive polite and official without naming the office as 'we.' Changing to active ('We request all students to note') is possible, but it makes the notice more personal and less like a standard circular.