Writing Skills (Lekhan Kaushalya): essay, letter, report, precis, dialogue
Writing Skills (Lekhan Kaushalya)
This section tests format as much as language. Nibandh (essay), patra (letter), ahval/report, sankshepan (precis) and sambhashan (dialogue) each have a shape that examiners check before they read your Sindhi.
Formats at a glance
- Nibandh: introduction, two or three body paragraphs each with one idea and an example, conclusion. Varnanatmak (descriptive), vicharatmak (reflective) and kathanatmak (narrative) essays need different openings - a narrative opens on action, a reflective one on a statement.
- Patra: sender's address, date, receiver's address, salutation, subject (formal only), body, closing, signature. Anopcharik (informal) letters drop the subject line and use a personal salutation.
- Ahval/report: headline, place and date, then a body answering what, who, when, where, why and how - third person, past tense, no personal opinion.
- Sankshepan: one-third of the original length, third person, no examples or dialogue, no opinion of your own.
- Sambhashan: eight to ten turns, each speaker named, natural spoken Sindhi, one idea per turn.
Worked example
A report on a school tree-planting drive. Reasoning: the reader wants facts first, so open 'Nashik, 5 July: Two hundred saplings were planted at ... on Monday.' The headline sits above, in the present tense and without a full stop; the body stays in the past passive. Adding 'I felt it was a wonderful programme' would lose the format mark.
Traps
Putting a subject line in an informal letter; using 'I' and 'we' in a report; copying sentences from the source into a precis; writing dialogue as one paragraph; an essay with no paragraph breaks.