Page 136 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade7_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 2.6
continued
Language and Writer’s Craft: Revising for Precise Language and Formal Style
Most of your expository writing will be for an academic audience. For this audience, you should use precise language and a formal writing style.
Precise language. Your choice of words (diction) should include the academic vocabulary and literary terms that you are learning, as they apply to the topic. For example:
Original: The advertisement used a celebrity to help sell its product.
Revised: The advertisement used the advertising technique of a testimonial to sell
its product by using the professional athlete Derek Jeter.
Another way to be precise is to provide detailed information about a text or resource you are citing.
Original: In the news story it says that . . .
Revised: In the news story from the New York Times on Sunday, March 18, the
author claims that . . .
Formal language. Formal language avoids slang, and it generally does not use contractions. Most slang that you might use in everyday language is too casual for academic writing. Words or phrases you use with your peers may not be understood by different audiences or appropriate for an academic topic.
Original: I’m a teenager, and, like, most of us look at famous people as cool and in the know.
Revised: Teenagers generally believe that famous people are models for their own thoughts and behavior.
Check Your Understanding
WRITING to SOURCES Expository Writing Prompt: Using information from one of your searches, write a paragraph summarizing the information you found about marketing to young people. Be sure to:
• Introduce your topic clearly.
• Use concrete details, examples, and quotations to develop your topic.
• Use formal language and transitions that create coherence.
My Notes
Unit 2 • What Influences My Choices? 109
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