Writing Skills: Notice, Advertisement, and Story Composition
Notice, Advertisement, and Story Composition
This domain tests three short-form writing tasks: a notice informs a specific group, an advertisement persuades a target buyer, and a story narrates a conflict to a resolution.
Core rules and concepts
- Notice: boxed, issued by an authority, dated, with a heading and the 5 Ws; keep it brief; no personal opinion.
- Advertisement: headline, benefit-led copy, persuasive adjectives, price or offer, contact detail; use second person ('you') and a call to action.
- Story: establish character, setting, and disturbance; build complication; use dialogue and sensory detail; resolve the conflict; keep tense consistent.
- Show, don't tell: 'Her hands shook as she unfolded the letter' beats 'She was nervous'.
- A notice is not a letter; an advertisement is not a notice; a story is not a report.
Worked example
Task: notice for a lost library book. Draft: 'LOST BOOK - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, borrowed from the school library, was lost on 14 August near the assembly hall. Finder please return it to the librarian or Class X-B by 20 August. - Riya Sen, Class X-B.' Reasoning: The heading names the object; the body gives title, place, date, and return route; the issuer and deadline are clear. An advertisement would instead stress why the book is worth buying, and a story would dramatise the loss.
Traps
Notice written as a letter; advertisement with no target or contact; story with no complication; tense slips; dialogue without punctuation; overlong notice; using 'I' in a notice issued by a committee; ending a story immediately after the climax.