Reading and Writing
Writing a notice and a message
Set out a notice and a telephone message in their usual parts, and keep both of them short, factual and impersonal.
A notice and a message are the two shortest things you will ever be asked to write, and both of them are read by somebody in a hurry. Neither is a letter. Neither has room for a single word that is not doing a job.
A notice is public
It goes on a board where anybody may read it, so it never greets one person and never signs off with love or sincerely. No Dear friends at the top; no Yours faithfully at the bottom. Your name and what you are — Sports Captain, Head of the Science Club — and that is the whole ending.
Have a play
Every part of a school notice has a job. Take the parts of this one in turn and find out what each is called.
Tap any part of the picture.
The four questions
The body of a notice has to answer what, when, where and who — what is happening, when and where it is happening, and who should do something about it. If a reader still has one of those four questions afterwards, the notice has failed.
Third person, always
All students are informed, not I am telling you. Interested candidates may apply, not Come and see me. A notice speaks about its readers rather than to them, and that is what makes it sound official rather than chatty.
A telephone message is smaller still, and it has one job: to make sure the person who was out ends up knowing exactly what the person who called wanted. Date and time, whom it is for, whom it is from, what was said, and your own name at the end. No address, no greeting, no opinions — if the caller sounded rude, that is not for the message to say.
Worked example
Turn this into one line of a notice: "I want to tell you all that I have decided we will have the debate in the library on Thursday afternoon."
Cut every I and you. The notice is about the debate, not about the writer.
Third person is the first thing a reader notices, and the first thing an examiner notices too.
Try it together
Let us draft one notice and one message together.
A water bottle has been found on the school bus. You are the class monitor, and it can be collected from the school office.
1.A notice is read by everybody, so it never greets one person. Write the one word a friendly letter begins with that a notice must never use.
Have a go
Which of these lines belongs in a notice rather than in a letter?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.