Informal and Formal texts

This week in class we were going to write an Informal and a formal text. I chose the topic: The 2012 US Presidential Election. To make it easier to see the contrasts between an Informal and a formal text, I am Writing about the same topic in both texts.

Here are some points you can try to look for in the texts and see if you see the differences.

Formal:

• Complex structure 

• Objective

• Full words

• Third person style

• Not a personal writing style

Informal:

• You can write almost anything you want
• Colloquial

• You can use simple and oral expressions .

• Contractions/abbreviations
• Empathy/emotion

• You can use more subjective opinions 

The 2012 US Presidential Election

Till now, there have been three debates between the main candidates in the US Presidential Election 2012, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, and the last debate was finished Monday night the 22 of October. Mitt Romney is representing the Republican Party, and Barack Obama are representing the Democratic Party and has also been the President of the US for one period now, which is equal to four years. The states are split and Romney and Obama has almost half of the states each on their side, and some states are tilt- states. So who is going to win?

The Republican Party is considered as a conservative party, and they want free markets and a less federal state. They are also against gay marriage and abortion, and they support the death penalty.

The Democratic Party is considered as a liberal Party, and they are generally supportive of gay rights and they are also supportive to death penalty which they have in common with the Republican Party.

It is hard to describe in a short way what the parties mean about different cases in foreign policy, as Iraq, Iran, and the Middle East etc., but they have different opinions, and according to NRK´s article this is Romney’s weakest point.

In the first debate they focused on domestic policy, neither Obama nor Romney delivered a particularly “hard-hitting zinger or one-liner” according to an article in US news. Polls immediately following the debate showed that Romney was favored, and a lots of people thought Obama did a bad first debate according to the same article.

In the second debate where the audience could ask questions about domestic and foreign policy, sources say that Obama had improved, but Romney still won according to CNN.

In the third and last debate which took place yesterday, the topic was foreign policy which is considered as Romney’s weakest point, but according to NRK Romney gave Obama a hard fight, but this time Obama clearly won.

According to a research by CNN forty eight percent said that Obama won, while forty percent said that Romney won. Fifty three percent of the people, who have not decided yet who they want to vote for, said that they would have chosen Obama in this debate, while Romney only got twenty percent saying that they would have voted for him in this debate.

It seems like both candidates stands strong, but that Obama has improved. So who is going to win is still unknown.

Sources:

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Det_republikanske_parti_(USA)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates,_2012

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/16/politics/debate-mainbar/index.html - CNN article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/utenriks/valg-usa-2012/1.8368299 - NRK article

                                     

The Informal text: 

Till now there have been three debates between the two main candidates for the US election 2012, Romney and Obama. Mitt Romney is representing the Republican Party, while Obama is representing the Democratic Party. Obama has also been the President of the US for four years now which I believe is really good for the country! The states opinions are quite split, and both Romney and Obama have half of the states each on their side, and some states are tilt states.

The Republican and the Democratic Party have some different and some similar opinions. It´s hard to describe exactly what the main differences in their opinions are, but to be short the Republican Party are against gay´s marriage and gay´s rights, while the Democratic Party are supportive to gay´s rights and marriage. It´s easy to see why the Republican Party are being called conservative when they are holding on these old traditions like being against gay marriage and abortion like they were in the old days. Now that we have equality status between men and women, and we are so obsessed with it, why are we going to be so conservative?

A similarity is that both The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are supportive to death penalty, which I´m not so sure about. Even though lots of people have done horrible things, no one has the right to take their life from them. They may have killed somebody else, and therefore they are being punished because they have no right to take another person’s life, so the parties are kind of speaking against themselves when they say no one has the right to take other person’s life, while they are taking sentenced peoples life.

In two of three debates people has said afterwards that they think Romney has won, and that in the first debate Obama did bad, but in the second one he had improved. In the third debate when the topic was about foreign policy which is Romney’s weakest point, Obama won clearly. Even though foreign policy is Romney´s weakest point, he gave Obama a hard debate, but in the end it was Obama who won.

So who is going to win is not easy to say, but after the last debate it seemed like Obama did very well, but nothing is decided until the real election! 

                                               

I chose this theme because I think it´s very recent, because of the soon coming election in the USA. I think this topic is very interesting because the debates between Romney and Obama is fun and interesting to follow, especially since they both have a good chance of winning! I think the topic is important to the society because the election in the USA is important to the whole world since USA is considered as a super power. So some countries may be affected by who will win the election.

As told before, I have written a formal and informal text with the same topic, but of course some difference in the writing style.

In the formal text I have written it like an article, I have used an objective language by not using "I think" or "I believe" or  using my own opinions. I have also mentioned in the text where I have found information by using "according to...».

For example I have written a sentence like this:..but they have different opinions, and according to NRK´s article this is Romney’s weakest point.

Here, I have written my source, and shown that this is not my opinion, but an opinion from an objective article. If this had been a informal text, I could have written like this: but they have different opinions, and I think this is Romney’s weakest point. Here I have used my own opinion.

Here I have written a sentence where I have written "it is" instead of "it´s": It is hard to describe in a short way

In the Informal text I still have the same topic, but I have changed the writing style to more a "letter to the editor" kind of. I have used more of my opinions, a simpler language with easier sentences, and much more "I think" and used more oral writing.

For example in this sentence I have used a very informal way of writing because I have written what I think, and not used a reliable and objective source: "Obama has also been the President of the US for four years now which I believe is really good for the country!"

In this sentence I have also written it´s instead of it is: It´s hard to describe exactly...