Recognise a text’s purpose and read for evidence

A welcoming message and a report do different jobs

• A fictional neighbourhood centre wants new volunteers. Its invitation encourages people to join; its short report explains what happened during a trial. Reading both as advertisements would hide the report's limits. Text type changes what you should look for.
• This original GAC008-aligned lesson teaches purpose, audience, skimming, scanning and inference. The texts below are invented classroom material. They are not findings about a real community or an official assessment.

Identify audience before choosing language

• Read the invitation for its intended reader and requested action. Direct address, practical details and an encouraging tone fit a public invitation. A reader needs to know whether they can attend, where to go and how to respond.
• The report addresses a different question: what evidence supports a conclusion? Its named trial, count and limitation fit a short evidence-based report. Academic writing can use plain words; it does not need long words to become analytical.

Invitation: Want to help a neighbour practise everyday English? Join our volunteer introduction at East Hall on Saturday at ten. No teaching experience is required. Please email the centre by Thursday so we can prepare enough materials.

Trial report: In a four-week centre trial, eighteen adults attended at least one conversation session. Eleven returned for a second session. Interview comments suggested that evening times helped some participants attend. However, the trial did not compare evening and daytime groups, and it cannot show that timing alone caused repeat attendance.

Skim for structure, then scan for a detail

• Skimming means reading quickly for the overall purpose and structure. The invitation moves from benefit to event details to a response. The report moves from counts to a possible explanation and a limit. Write a one-sentence purpose for each before answering detail questions.
• Scanning means searching for a particular detail, such as a deadline or a participant count. Find “Thursday” for the response deadline. In the report, keep eleven repeat participants separate from eighteen people who attended at least once; both numbers answer different questions.

{callout:example} Purpose: the invitation recruits volunteers and explains how to respond. Detail: email by Thursday. Report finding: eleven of eighteen returned. Limit: no daytime comparison, so timing alone is not an established cause. {/callout}

Separate what is stated from what you infer

• The invitation explicitly allows people without teaching experience. It does not state that all training is unnecessary or that everyone will become a paid teacher. A reasonable inference stays close to the words; an unsupported assumption adds information.
• The report suggests evening times helped some people. That is weaker than “evenings always increase attendance.” Look for scope words such as some, suggested and cannot. Removing them strengthens the claim beyond the evidence.

{callout:warn} A precise number can make a passage sound authoritative. It does not remove an explicitly stated limitation or turn a small fictional trial into a general rule. {/callout}

Write for one reader and one purpose

• Write a 70-word invitation to an invented reading group. Include its intended reader, activity, place, time and response action. Use a friendly tone and clearly mark invented details; do not advertise a real event that has not been approved.
• Then write a 70-word report using only the trial passage. Include the two attendance counts, the interview suggestion and the comparison limit. Keep its language measured rather than borrowing the invitation's promises.

Review the reader’s likely understanding

• Ask a partner to identify each text's purpose without seeing your label. If they cannot, revise the opening and ending. Then ask them to locate one practical detail or one evidence limit. A useful text lets its reader do the intended job.
• Self-check your report against the source: eighteen first-or-later attendees, eleven repeat attendees, comments from some people, no comparison group. Your invitation should be usable; your report should be accurate. Neither needs invented success claims.

{callout:key} Identify purpose and audience, skim for the main pattern, scan for details, and keep an inference within the text's evidence. {/callout}