Y Gymraeg yn ei Chyd-destun (Welsh Language in Context)

The paper supplies a set of facts and statistics. Work out the boundary between legitimate expansion and fabrication, with examples on each side.

1. 01Legitimate: supplying what the format requires

   A news bulletin needs an opening sentence that orients a listener, and the notes will not have written it. Minutes need a heading, a list of those present in some form, and numbered items. A press release needs an issuing body and a date-line. None of that is in the supplied material, all of it is required by the format, and supplying it is exactly what the permission is for.

2. 02Legitimate: connective and interpretative work

   The notes will give facts in no particular order and with no relations between them. Deciding which fact leads, which is context, which is consequence, and writing the sentences that state those relations is the substance of the task. “O ganlyniad i hynny…” is not an addition to the information; it is an argument about the information, and making it is the writing.

3. 03Legitimate: plausible generic material a format assumes

   A speech may need a form of address; a set of instructions may need a safety note if the procedure obviously requires one; a report may need a line saying that a body has been approached for comment. These are conventions of the form rather than claims about the world, and a marker reading for format will expect them.

4. 04Not legitimate: a fact the notes do not support

   A figure you have made up, a quotation from somebody who did not speak, an event the notes do not mention. In a task where the source material is printed on the same paper, an invented fact is checkable in seconds, and it converts a writing task into a credibility problem. If a format seems to need a fact you do not have, the professional solution is the one professionals use: write around it, or say that it is not yet known.

5. 05The test to apply

   Ask whether the thing you are about to add is required by the FORM or asserted about the WORLD. Form requirements — headings, addresses, orientation sentences, structure — are what the permission covers. World assertions need to come from the notes. That single distinction settles almost every case, and it is worth writing at the top of the answer before you start.

Result: Expansion covers what the FORM requires — orientation sentences, headings, addresses, structure, connective and interpretative sentences that state relations between the supplied facts. It does not cover assertions about the WORLD: figures, quotations and events not in the notes. The test is form-requirement against world-assertion.

You are given the same supplied notes. Write the opening of each format and identify every point at which they diverge.

1. 01The bulletin opening

   “Mae cynllun i ailagor y rheilffordd rhwng y ddau le wedi'i gymeradwyo heddiw. Bydd y gwaith yn dechrau'r flwyddyn nesaf, a disgwylir iddo gymryd tair blynedd.” Present or perfect, active, the decision first, one fact per sentence, nothing subordinated. A listener who is half-attending has the story after twelve words. That is the format's whole design.

2. 02The minutes opening

   “3. Y rheilffordd. Cyflwynwyd y cynllun gan y Swyddog Cynllunio. Wedi trafodaeth, cytunwyd i gymeradwyo'r cynllun. Gweithredu: y Swyddog Cynllunio i adrodd yn ôl ym mis Mawrth.” Numbered, impersonal, past, and the last line is an action with a name and a date attached. Nothing here tells you what anybody argued, because minutes record decisions rather than discussions.

3. 03The divergences, listed

   Person: the bulletin has an implied speaker and the minutes have none. Tense: perfect and future against past. Voice: active against impersonal. Order: importance-first against agenda-order. Content: the bulletin includes what makes the story interesting and the minutes include what makes the record complete. And the minutes end with an action, which the bulletin has no equivalent of.

4. 04The Welsh the two registers need

   The minutes register runs on the impersonal forms — cyflwynwyd, cytunwyd, penderfynwyd, nodwyd — and those forms are worth drilling before the examination because they are not what you use in ordinary writing and they are where the accuracy risk sits. The bulletin register runs on clean active sentences and on the ability to compress: it is easier grammatically and harder rhetorically.

5. 05What this tells you about choosing

   The question will prescribe the format, but if a choice is offered, choose the one whose register you have drilled rather than the one whose content looks easier. A bulletin written in minutes-register and minutes written as narrative are both failures of the thing this section marks, and neither is repaired by knowing the subject well.

Result: Same facts, and almost no shared sentence: perfect-and-future against past, active against impersonal, importance-order against agenda-order, and an action line the bulletin has no equivalent of. The minutes register runs on the impersonal forms — cyflwynwyd, cytunwyd, penderfynwyd — which need drilling before the day because they are not ordinary writing.

Take a single decision and write its opening for three different readers, showing how the audience determines every choice.

1. 01For a listener who knows nothing

   “Mae'r cyngor wedi penderfynu cau'r ganolfan hamdden ym mis Medi.” Twelve words, everything the listener needs, active voice, one clause. Note what has been left out: why, on what vote, after what consultation. A bulletin's first sentence buys the listener's attention and everything else comes after it.

2. 02For a journalist who knows the sector

   “Cyhoeddodd y cyngor heddiw y bydd y ganolfan hamdden yn cau ym mis Medi, yn dilyn yr adolygiad a gyhoeddwyd ym mis Mai.” The reference to a previous review would be noise to the general listener and is essential to the journalist, who wants to know what this connects to. The register has risen, the sentence has lengthened, and an assumed shared context has appeared.

3. 03For the record

   “7. Y Ganolfan Hamdden. Yn dilyn yr adolygiad, penderfynwyd cau'r ganolfan ym mis Medi. Gweithredu: y Prif Weithredwr i hysbysu'r staff erbyn diwedd y mis.” Impersonal, numbered, past, and closing on an action with a person and a deadline. Nobody is quoted and nothing is characterised, because a record is not an account.

4. 04What changed, precisely

   Sentence length rose from twelve to twenty-one words and then fell again. The voice went active, active, impersonal. The assumed knowledge went from none, to sectoral, to institutional. And the purpose went from informing, to supplying a story, to fixing a decision. Four variables, and every one of them is set by the audience rather than by the writer's preference.

5. 05The rule to carry in

   Before writing a word, write two things in the margin: who is receiving this, and in what circumstances. Then let every subsequent decision follow from those two. That is the whole of what 'aware of the register and the audience appropriate to the task' means, and it takes thirty seconds — after which the format's conventions are no longer arbitrary rules to remember but consequences you can derive.

Result: Same decision, three readers: twelve active words for a listener who knows nothing; twenty-one with a sectoral reference for a journalist; impersonal, numbered and closing on an action for the record. Sentence length, voice, assumed knowledge and purpose are all set by the audience — so write who and in what circumstances in the margin first.

You have a page of facts, figures and notes and the question asks for a news bulletin. Work through the five minutes of preparation and write the opening.

1. 01Decide the principle of order

   A bulletin is ordered by importance to the listener, not by chronology and not by the order the notes happen to be in. So the first job is to find the single most consequential fact on the page — usually a decision, a change, or something that will affect people — and mark it 1. Everything else is numbered by how directly it bears on that.

2. 02Cross out ruthlessly

   A bulletin item is short. Most of the fact sheet will not appear in it, and choosing what goes is a marked skill rather than a compromise. Background that a listener does not need to understand the item, secondary figures, the names of people who are not central: cross them out on the paper so you are not tempted back to them mid-sentence.

3. 03Find the comparison for the key figure

   If the item turns on a number, look through the notes for what it can be set against — last year's figure, the projected figure, the figure elsewhere. “…sef bron dwbl y ffigwr ar gyfer y flwyddyn flaenorol” turns a statistic into information. If no comparison exists in the notes, state the figure plainly and move on.

4. 04Write the first sentence for the ear

   “Mae'r cyngor wedi cytuno i ariannu'r gwasanaeth am ddwy flynedd arall.” One clause, active, subject early, no subordination. Read it in your head at speaking speed: if you have to go back, a listener would have lost it. Then the second sentence carries the comparison and the third the consequence or the next step.

5. 05Close the item, do not trail off

   A bulletin item ends on what happens next or on the outstanding question: “Bydd y penderfyniad yn cael ei adolygu eto ymhen dwy flynedd.” That closing is a convention of the form and its absence is noticeable — an item that simply stops reads as a candidate running out of notes rather than as a piece of professional writing.

Result: Order by importance to the listener and number the notes accordingly; cross out most of the sheet; find the comparison that turns the key figure into information; write a first sentence in one active clause that survives being heard once; and close on what happens next, because an item that simply stops reads as running out of notes.

You have ten minutes left and a completed piece. Run the format-fidelity check and the accuracy sweep, in that order, and decide what to change.

1. 01Opening move

   Read your first sentence and ask what format it announces. If it could open three of the seven, it announces none of them, and the fix is a single sentence — an item number and heading, a dated announcement line, a form of address. This is the cheapest repair available and it is worth doing first because it costs under a minute.

2. 02Order, person and tense

   Scan for the principle of order: does the piece run by importance, by agenda, by chronology? Then check person and tense are consistent throughout. The commonest drift is a piece that begins impersonal and becomes narrative around its third paragraph, which usually happens at the point where the writer became interested in the content.

3. 03Sentence length

   Mark the length of each sentence in the margin. A bulletin whose sentences average twenty-five words is not a bulletin however accurate it is; minutes whose sentences average eight are unlikely to be recording anything. This check takes ninety seconds and it catches a fault that reads as unmistakably wrong to anybody familiar with the format.

4. 04Closing move

   If the piece stops rather than closes, add the two sentences that close it. An action with a name and a date for minutes; what happens next for a bulletin; contact details for a press release; a check for instructions. Two sentences, ninety seconds, and the piece is finished rather than abandoned.

5. 05Then the accuracy sweep, deliberately boring

   Now read for the Welsh alone. Mutations first, running the five-step procedure at any point you are unsure. Then the impersonal forms, which are the register's own risk. Then numbers and dates, which this section is full of and which carry their own mutation triggers. Then circumflexes. Do not read for sense during this pass; reading for sense is why writers miss their own errors.

Result: Five checks in order — opening move, order and person and tense, sentence length, closing move — each of which is repairable in about ninety seconds, then a separate accuracy pass that deliberately ignores meaning. Opening and closing moves are the cheapest format marks in the section and the ones most often left unclaimed.