Unit 8 • Reports
1 .1 Organizing arecommendation report
Thefirstparagraphof thisrecommendation re po rtis mis sing. Readthe repo rt,
then choosethe mosta pprop riatefirstparag raphfrom thethreegiven.PROPOSEDSUBSCRIPTIONTO
ABRITISHNEWSPAPER( First paragraphl1Iissin g:choose[ronia, handc
he/ow)Tabloids
There wasgene ralagreeme ntthat, d espite their
lowprice ,noneofth etabloidnewspapers (also
knO'\01asth e 'pop ula r'press) cou ld be
recommended, for the following rea sons:
1 the inappropriacy of theprose as amodelof
w ritte n English.
2 th e limitedcoverageof internationalnews ,th e
a rts,busine ss, etc.
3 atenden cy towards sexism, racism andinsularity.Qualitypress
11 wasunanimously agr e edth at onlythe
Independ entandth eGuardianmerited close
scruti ny, th e otherquality p ap ers holdi ng toolitt l e
appeal for a readershipofst ude ntsandyoung
profe s sional p eople.TheIndependent
(Monday-Sat u rday, £93 .47 for 13 we eks)
All agr eedtocom me nd- the quality of the wri ting.
- th eproportion of intemationalnews.
- thebroadspectru mofarts coverage.
- theindependenceofth e political stance.
Theairmail price appeare d to be goodvalue ,hut
there wasso me di sappoin tmentthatth eSaturday
coloursupp le me ntwasnotincluded.TheGu a rd ian
(Monday-Saturday, £ 127for13 weeks)
11 was felt that theCuardian,althoughcomparable
to theIndependentin mostotherrespects,hada
significantadvantage in the st re ng thofits Tuesday
supp le me nt,GuardianEducation.This sup p le me n t
is writtenintabloidform andinclude s excelle nt
art icleswritten to b eofintere stto seconda rv school
st ude n ts; thereare alsoa rt icle sad d re ssing ,;mtte rs
ofintere stto teachers.TheGuardians ot her
adva ntage wasth e inclu sion on Sat u rdayofa
supp le me nte n title dG uardi an Weekend,morethan
e ightypage s longandillustratedinco lour.Recommen datio n
Both theGuardianandtheIndependentcon tain a
wealthofre ad ingmatte r thatwouldbe amost
valu ab leresourceI,",teachersandstu de n ts alike.
Thequestionwas raisedwhe the r they would in fact
contain toomuch: wouldth e st ude nt sandte achers
findtime to readthem?Shouldthis be se en to be a
problem, th e cheape r andappa re ntly thinner
Independentmayb eprefe r red.If, h owe ver, the
st udentsand tea chers havea large ap pe tit e for
qualityjournalism,andif the priceofth eG ua rdia n
iswithina sch ool'sb udge t, th ena sub sc rip tion to
th eGuardianis recommended.a There aremany newspapersinBritain, hutnotallofthemwo uld heIlsef;J1for
foreign stude nts. Someofthe mcontain little otherthanscandalandfootball,
whileothers are only re adhystockbrokersor thelanded ge ntly.We 'regoing to
look at the differentpapersandseewhich would be bestforYOllrschool.
b This repo rtistheproduct of a workingpartyoffivemembers of theELT
D epartmentof Wesse x Universitywhosebrie f was to identi(\ ' which Britishdaily
newspaper wo uld be most appropriateas are s ou rce fo r CAEstude nts at
lanbruage schools inAlavn.Afte r a weeko fin di vidualre se arch, a meetingwashe ld
in orde r to share findingsand reach a conclusion.
c A working partyledbyJamesBiggleswo rth(myself) wasrequ e sted, on 3
February 1993 , to undertake a SUIy ey of the curre nt daily pre ssin Britain and to
reporttheirfindings to the EnglishLanguageTe ach ingAssoc iatio n ofAlava.
Aftera longandfascinatin g wee k's wo rk during whi ch we ploughedthroughan
e no rmo us quantity o f newsprint, here is whatwedecided.118 • Tasktypes