1. Formal vs. Informal Writing and MLA formatting
Academic Writing
Formal vs. Informal Writing and MLA formatting

2. Formal vs. Informal Writing

3. What’s the difference?
Formal and informal language serve different purposes.
Formal
Less personal
Professional or academic purposes
Does NOT use:
slang or colloquialisms,
contractions or abbreviations,
1st and 2nd person pronouns
(I, me, mine, we, us, our, you, your)
Informal
Casual language
Used when communicating with friends or family
Used when writing personal s or messages
Personal tone

4. Formal vs. Informal Writing
Things to consider:
Who is your audience?
What is your purpose?
When will it appropriate to write informally?
Audience: me (teacher)
Purpose: Academic writing purpose will either be to inform or persuade. Students will not be asked to entertain me
Notes
Class assignments (that are not a formal essay or short answer)
Journal responses

5. Remember your rules for what cannot be written in formal writing
Let’s practice
Insert formal expression which correspond to the ones in brackets. 1. I ________ to ________ you that our prices have ________. (sorry - tell - gone up) 2. This is _________________ that costs have risen. (because) 3. Unfortunately, I have to ________ you that I ____________________ the meeting. (tell - can’t - come to) 4. _____________________ some brochures describing our products. (Here [in this letter] are) 5. We have ________ ________ to increase our prices. (had) 6. You are 90 days past due on invoice #2792, please __________________ as soon as possible. (pay up) 7. Please write _________________ any ________ (if you’ve got - questions)

6. Let’s practice
Transform SIX of following sentences from informal to formal English. 9. We are not going to renew the sole representative agreement again because you haven’t produced enough business for us. 10. The machine should work because it has been tested. 11. Our bank has told us that you haven’t made this month’s payment. 12. We can’t send you the engineering blueprints on disk until the full joint-venture agreement is signed in full next month. 13. We’re too busy to go to London for the meeting in this period. Can you come over here? 14. Your client didn’t complete the documents properly. Please get him to do it and then send them back to us as soon as possible. 16. There’s a problem on the computer system. It won’t work between 10 and 12pm tomorrow. 17. This is because we think it’s necessary. 18. We’ll help you if you need it. 19. If we don’t receive payment we’ll call our lawyers. 20. We’ll give you 8 days to solve this problem.

7. Rewrite the paragraph in formal language
"Jack Spring thinks that everyone should have the right to own a gun but I don't agree with him. People like him think that the government is infringing our democratic rights when it restricts gun ownership. They think that most people who own guns are responsible citizens who keep the guns for sport and recreation. They also think that the police are unable to stop violent crime and we need guns to protect ourselves. But I think he's wrong. I agree with Josephine Bluff who thinks that guns increase the amount of violent crime in the community. I also think that human life is worth more than sporting shooters right to go shooting on the weekend. And I also think that many of the guns that are kept around the house end being used in violent domestic disputes or teenage suicides."

8. “Why do I need to learn MLA style?”
MLA Formatting Modern Language Association The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is “The style bible for most college students.” - Newsweek
“MLA style represents a consensus among teachers, scholars, and librarians in the fields of language and literature on the conventions for documenting research” (Feal xiii).
It is the most simplistic of the different writing formats
Most commonly used format among colleges and universities

9. These are the basic formatting rules you need to know:
The ENTIRE document must be double spaced, including your heading.
Heading at the top LEFT corner
Your Name Your first and last name
Mrs. Jones Teacher/ Professor
English III- Period Course name
28 August Date (dd/mm/yyyy)-- DUE date
Header in the top RIGHT corner: Last name and page number

11. These are the basic formatting rules you need to know:
Times New Roman 12 pt. font
ONE inch margins
Write out numbers under 100
If wanting to use an abbreviation you will write out the meaning in parentheses the FIRST time and then can use the abbreviation then on
MLA (Modern Language Association)

12. MLA internal documentation
When quoting a source, you will put the quote in quotation marks and cite the author and the page number in parentheses and punctuate after the parentheses.
For example:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 189).
Period
Quotation marks
Author
Page number