English Grammar – The Basic Rules
- Nouns and pronouns (WH – p3)
- Verbs, adverbs
- Adjectives
- Prepositions
- Conjunctions and interjections
Spelling – Selecting the Right Word
- Making the right choice
- Words and their meanings
- Keep it simple – fudge factor
- Words with double meanings
- Anonyms and synonyms
Punctuation and Beyond
- Four main stops
- Dot colon and semicolon
- Other marks – the dash, the slash and hyphen
- Apostrophes
Written English
- Sentence construction (HE- p.17)
- Active and positive (HE – p.22)
- Writing with nouns and verbs (HE – p44)
- Paragraphs
- Writing styles
- Choosing the right style for the right platform
English in the Newsroom
- The structure of the newsroom
- Copydesk
- Newsdesk
- Text Editor
- Copy Taster
- News Editor
Practical Application of English to a News Story
- Context – making a newspaper, radio bulletin, television programme or web based artifact (HE – p.2)
- News values, judgement and the writing process
- The news lead
- Reported speech
- Direct quotes
- The art of the precis
- Bringing dead prose to life
Cliches, Jargon, Mixed Metaphors and Worse
- Cliches
- Metaphors
- Similes
- Redundancies (HE – p83)
- Slang (WH 36 & 66 – & HE – pps57 & 246)
- Wasteful Words
- Stale expressions (HE – p87)
English in the Editing and Production Process
- The news process and editing structure
- The intro in print and text
- The intro/link – audio and video
- The intro online
- The home page – internet and online
- The headline – text, audio and online (HE – p204)
Spoken English for the Media
- English for audio and video
- Approaches to conversational English
- Approaches to telling, not writing a story
- Adapting written English for spoken presentation
English for Text, Online and Small Screen Devices
- The home page
- deconstructing text and other content
- Headlines, captions and textboxes
- Key words and their importance
- Text for mobiles
- Metadata, text and web optimisation
Specialist writing skills
- Sports writing
- Business News
- Politics
- Arts, Music and Entertainment
- Critical Writing
Example Candidate Response Booklet
Example Candidate Response (ECR) Booklets are a source of crucial information for Centres and Candidates as they use real candidate responses. We ask Senior Examiners to comment on five or more responses in terms of why the mark was awarded with commentary about how to improve the answer (if necessary).
