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Formal language

A lot of the writing you’ll do during school and perhaps university will be, to some degree, formal. And if you ever have to write reports in whatever career you end up in, chances are that a formal report will be expected. Most companies don’t like being presented with reports filled with slang!

One way to think about how to write formally is to think about not doing what you do when you write casually. So minimise or completely remove any colloquialisms, idioms, verb contractions, slang, and sentence fragments. There are sometimes situations where one or more of these are appropriate, but they usually have no place in formal writing.