Enb5 Ew - E-magazine Shuttleworth Tips

A2 English Language Editorial Writing In this article, John Shuttleworth (The Principal Examiner at AQA for your exam) shows you how to achieve high marks in the Editorial Writing paper for AQA B English Language. As this article is all to do with helping you to do well in your exams, let’s start with a short test. Here’s the question:

1.

Identify the sources of each of the following two extracts. Which is taken from ‘The Times’ (1 August, 2001) and which from A Level English Language student’s script no. 89146/2617 (21 May, 2001)?

Extract 1

If you’re thinking of taking a year out from the blood, sweat ‘n’ tears of Higher Education, then backpacking may well be the last thing you want to do. All that expense, all that danger, all that ... erm ... walking - waste of time, right? WRONG! Think again, hombre. Consider this: backpacking is cheap, easy and it will change your life. The Experience What are you doing tonight? Off down the pub with your mates to spend £15 on dodgy ale for the fourth time this week? Going clubbing so that you can sweat it out to the latest bangin’ choons and wake up with a bangin’ headache? Or maybe it’s a quiet night in, with a few bags of crisps and Jerry Springer to keep you entertained? Well, you could do that, but if you were backpacking you could be: Meeting orang-utans in Indonesia Snorkelling off Riley Beach in Thailand Tracking wild African dogs in Botswana Admit it, that sounds alright, doesn’t it? Backpacking is about the experience - you’ll mature as a person, become far more independent, learn to appreciate the people and things around you, and most importantly of all - you’ll have fun. A year spent backpacking will provide you with the experience of a lifetime, and more fun than you can shake a stick at.

Extract 2

Behold, one Flora, fresh-faced English schoolgirl, thrown, like the sacrificial virgin she most probably is, into a life of backpacking, beach-hopping and wiping the occasional child’s bottom. Eight months later she returns, unwashed and unrecognisable, complete with eating disorder, STD (sexually transmitted disease) and a drug habit, unable to finish a sentence without the words ‘yeah’ or ‘like’. She will insist that she now be referred to as Flea, a not wholly inappropriate moniker given the number of parasites to which she now plays host. Flea doesn’t want to go to ‘uni’ any more, which is good because her brain has mysteriously emptied save a few cod references to Hendrix, Hegel and the Dalai Lama.

Commentary Well, unlike most exams, we’ll put you out of your misery and give you the results straightaway. Extract 1 is from the exam script and Extract 2 from ‘The Times’. Despite the fact that the pieces were written under very different circumstances, that they appear in very different ‘publications’ and that they take diametrically opposing views on the subject of backpacking, they do share a number of similarities. The most obvious of these are the casual, informal language each writer uses (‘moniker’; ‘a few cod references’; ‘bangin’ headache’; ‘shake a stick at’) which contrasts with the more formal variety they sometimes use (‘she returns, unwashed and unrecognisable’; ‘mature as a person, become far more independent, learn to appreciate people’) and, of course, the direct address to the reader (‘Behold, one Flora’; ‘Admit it, that sounds alright, doesn’t it?’). At this point you might very well be saying that exam candidate no. 89146/2617 would make a very good feature writer for a newspaper or magazine; and you’d probably be

right. Presumably the editor of ‘The Times’ employed his writer because he knew she would produce an effective and entertaining article for the readers. This is exactly what 89146/2617 has done: produce a piece that would be effective and entertaining for his intended audience. Candidates for last year’s English Language ‘Editorial Writing’ exam were asked to write a piece entitled ‘Why Backpack?’ to contain essential information for students who wanted to take a year off before going to university. What, then, did they have to do to write a successful answer, as this candidate has clearly done?

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First: select material appropriate for intending backpackers from the source file they were given;

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Second: organise this selection of material and put it in the most effective order so that readers can find their way through it easily;

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Third: rewrite it using a voice suitable for a student audience.

It is these three skills of selection, organisation and re-writing that are the crucial ones for you to master if you want to succeed in this exam. You should always ask yourself these three questions about what you intend to write. Given the assignment that I have been asked to undertake:

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Have I chosen material that my audience needs to read?

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Am I using a voice that will speak effectively to my readers (or listeners)?

Am I ordering this material in the clearest possible way so that my audience can easily follow it?

And, if instead of three questions you want just one, then the key one for you to ask is: 

HOW EFFECTIVE WOULD THIS SCRIPT BE FOR ITS INTENDED AUDIENCE?

Finally let’s look at just one specific example of how this candidate has managed to achieve success. Here’s a short extract from the source file that he was given. You should be able to see quite clearly how he has used it. You can therefore see that he has:

Extract from Source File

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used some of the ideas about independence and appreciation of people contained in the passage.

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not slavishly copied the source out word for word, but rewritten it in a suitable style for his student readers.

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taken and adapted the ideas from the section about ‘your local night-club and the odd snog at ten-to-two’, not just used them as

On the other hand you’ll learn: Independence Self reliance And the appreciation of people and the things around you. You are going to learn more about the world, and realise that there is more to life than your local nightclub and the odd snog at ten-to-two. they stand.

Even from the very short extract from his work that you’ve encountered here, you ought to be able to see why he was awarded a high mark on this paper. You can see displayed his ability to select, organise and rewrite the source material that I’ve said are the crucial skills in this exam. You never know you might be reading articles by 89146/2617 in The Times a few years hence!

SJC 2003: Extract from e-magazine December 2001

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SJC 2003: Extract from e-magazine December 2001

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