Explore the Use of Formal Language in a Piece of Writing: The Cat

In this activity, we are going to be practising the use of formal language in our writing.

There has been an incident. You are the police officer who has been sent to investigate.

Work through the following questions to write up your report in formal and impersonal language, from the statements given to you by eyewitnesses.

Eyewitness account:

Well, I heard all this banging and crashing about and I went out back to see what was going off. I'd just had my tea and Eastenders was starting so I was in a bit of a rush and I crashed into this hoodie-type bloke who was in my garden. Anyway, I knocked him over by accident so he was on the ground and I asked him what he was doing and that and he said something about a cat - I wasn't really listening - and then he pointed up at the tree in next door's garden. Anyway, over the fence I could see all these neighbours around the big tree so I went past the hoodie bloke to look and there was this cat up there, but it was a bit dark so I couldn't really see what the big deal was, until they shone a torch, the neighbours did, and then I saw that it was stuck up there, but it was dressed up in clothes, then one of the others said that it was Supercat and he laughed, and then I saw that it had a cape and red underpants on.

You can read the eyewitness account at any time as you go through the questions by clicking on the Help button.