 Ever wondered how to go about writing a letter? Not to worry, I've created this video to explain to you exactly what to include if you are writing a letter as part of your exams and this is for the questions relating to question 5 of paper 2 of the GCSE English Language Paper 2 question. Now usually for this question you get a statement and sometimes you get a statement such as climate change is not a big deal. Write a letter to a member of parliament for example on whether you agree or disagree with this issue. Now behind me as you can see here I've created a mind map with essentially different steps and a detailed breakdown of the different components that go into a letter. So using that example let's go into how you would compose a good letter for your exam answer. Now what I did first off is draw a little bit of the layout. Now when it comes to a letter firstly always remember in the top right hand corner is always the name and the address of your recipient. So for instance if you're writing a letter to your local MP regarding climate change and let's say for argument's sake you've decided that you live in Greenwich area. So you'd write for example MP John Smith you can make up his name you don't have to know your local MP. So the first one would be MP John Smith one Greenwich Road Greenwich Council RBZ4KB so that's just a made up postcode always remember of course in terms of the postcode conventions it's letter letter two numbers then number letter letter. So for example SW1 5BK or SW10 2JB or whatever okay so that's the convention so that would be where you put the letter of your recipient so the person that's receiving it and then you skip a line and then just down here would be your name and address you can make up an alias again you're writing to MP John Smith and you are Miss Sarah Dockarty for instance right so it would be Miss Sarah Dockarty and you can make up your address it could be one London way London NW10 4BJ right so for example that would be your address so your recipient hair your address hair then the date so you can make up a date make sure that the date is not too fictitious so for example it can't be 21 December 2032 it would be roughly in the same year that you're writing it but it doesn't necessarily have to be the date but I would just suggest write the same day and the date that you're writing it in and then of course you start off with dear and then this is the body of your letter and then you end off with kind regards so that's essentially the layout of a letter now when it comes to the actual content so going back to the example of climate change and the statement is climate change is not a big deal do you agree or disagree now for example you begin your first paragraph with of course dear for example in this case MP John Smith and then you introduce the issue and I would suggest for example saying the issue of climate change is a perennial issue I believe XYZ for instance now when you've introduced this issue you then introduce your perspective so when it comes to your perspective I would suggest make it really really clear and sound one side of the argument so I would suggest to make a really really powerful and compelling argument stand on one side of the argument and I would suggest for instance so in my case I would argue that climate change is a big deal so I disagree with that statement so I would say I disagree that climate change is actually a big deal and then you can use the rule of three in this paragraph rule of three meaning you list three words are somehow related men women children ladies gentlemen and honorable sirs whatever and then you refer back to the keywords of course the keywords being climate change is a big deal now after first paragraph you then move on to your second paragraph now in your second paragraph you go into your first argument in depth you talk about why you believe this is an issue and you develop that argument in detail now I would suggest using repetition as a persuasive device and then I would also suggest giving an anecdote anecdote meaning giving a really relatable example talking about an individual who has been impacted by the issue you're talking about to make it really really relatable and then also when you're writing the letter always remember of course you are using direct address you're talking directly to the MP or you're talking directly to the recipient then in your third paragraph I would suggest you would then include your second argument and then you then add a fake statistic again the reason why the statistic is fake is because you don't know what question to anticipate however the examiners don't expect you to be an expert on any of the questions that come up it's how compelling an argument you can create and statistics of course are really important in strengthening your argument so of course make sure your statistic is not too crazy so for example you can't see a thousand percent of people think this or alternatively however you can make a more believable statistic so for example 75% of people in England who were questioned on whether they think climate change should be an important issue agreed that it was an important issue that's a statistic that's more believable then you then of course develop your argument so this is your second point of view and then afterwards in your paragraph for this is your third argument your third reason as to why you support your viewpoint and then you can use a rhetorical question to round this off however given this is an argument you will be tested on whether you can also be able to balance and consider counter arguments so other people who may or may not agree with you now when you're thinking about this I would suggest to allocating a paragraph 5 to considering counter points why people may disagree with you there's some people so I would say for example how to introduce these counter arguments is to say there's some who would say or there's some who disagree with me and they would say blah blah blah and then you give your first reason and the second counter argument and then of course here in your counter arguments you can also have a balanced statistic so you can give another counter statistic that show that you know researchers from the University of Cambridge found that people who were polled in Oxfordshire actually didn't believe that climate change was an issue that could be a counter argument and then of course you can also give an anecdote then after you've written this paragraph I would suggest finishing off and ending in your final paragraph by still refuting these counter arguments saying for example with all these points considered I still believe climate change is an issue or whatever keywords you're answering and then you reiterate your view so you reiterate why and then you reiterate in summary your first second and third argument as to why that issue is important and why you stand on that side of the argument and then you end off by either if it's a formal letter so for example going back to my example of you writing to the MP you would end off with kind regards in your name and last name so your name and the surname and of course remember that the name has to be exactly the same as the name that you've used to introduce yourself as the sender of the letter or if it's less formal so the more formal endings are kind regards and yours sincerely the less formal endings so for example if you're writing a letter to your parents for instance or to your friends you could end with much love yours faithfully that kind of thing so that's it when it comes to putting together a letter hopefully this has shown that it shouldn't be a very complicated and a very difficult task however if you are good in terms of planning and in terms of considering all of these components there's no reason why you should not be getting top marks so thank you so much for listening