AVCE Information and Communication Technology/Presenting information/Styles of writing and use of language

Writing Style
When creating a document of any type there are two important factors to take in to consideration when deciding what writing style to use:
 * Who the reader is
 * What the purpose of the document is

The Reader
You always need to consider your audience to help you understand what kind of language they are likely to understand and what writing style they might prefer. If you were writing for young children then you would need to use simple language, short sentences and plenty of graphics and colour. If you were writing for an older audience you would be able to use more complicated language and a more formal style.

Purpose
If you are writing a letter to apply for a job, then using formal language and complicated words are likely to impress. However, if you are writing a user-guide for a novice computer user on a piece of software it will just make the guide hard to understand and overly complicated.

Some examples of different types of document are:
 * Business letters
 * Informal letters
 * Reports
 * Legal Contracts
 * Invoices
 * Order Forms
 * Newsletters
 * Questionnaires
 * Advertisements

Each of these documents will have a different purpose which will make certain styles of writing more or less appropriate. As an example a legal contract will use very complicated language to ensure that there are no loop-holes and that everything is described in very minute detail, whereas a company newsletter will use informal language and be easy to read.