Account writing is a technique of reporting or describing an event or experience.

This is a
written document that preserves knowledge of events and facts.

Now you might be wondering, why do we write a report?

The quick and simple answer to this question is that this document provides a description of
the events in proper order, which allows the reader to reach a conclusion.

However, account writing and report writing are not the same.

They differ in terms of format and in some cases, even the tone or register (degree of
formality of language) may vary (depending on the situation). But, the core purpose of both
these writings is to inform the reader about certain events.

This was some introduction to this topic. Now, let’s discuss the format of an account without
further introductions.

Format of Account writing:

 Heading (optional but highly recommended).

It will address the audience and purpose. For instance, a heading can be something like this:
“To the Principal, an account of the recent trip of school”.

 Date.
You write a date if you do not write a heading. But, if you do write a heading then, there
is no need to write a date. However, writing a heading can be a better choice because you are
addressing the purpose of your account straight away.

You should make sure that the data is relevant (if added). What does this mean? Let’s
suppose that you went on a trip on 10th May 2021 and you have to report an incident during
the trip. The date should not be 20th December 2021 because why would you be reporting an
incident that late?

A relevant date (in this case) can be 12th May 2021.

 Introduction (first paragraph).

Here, you have to address why you are writing (the purpose). You may have to add some
background information (if necessary), depending on the situation. The purpose of an
introduction is to briefly tell about the topic (event or experience) that you are about to write
about.

 First content point (second paragraph).

In your question paper, you will be given three content points. These are the questions (bullet
points) that you have to address individually in seperate paragraphs.
Remember that you will be given 15 marks for task fulfilment and 15 marks for language in
the directed writing part for your GCE O Level English exam. These marks for task
fulfilment can only be achieved if you properly address the given points.

 Second content point (third paragraph).

As mentioned above, this will be the second point given by the question to you which you
will have to discuss to get good grades.

 Third content point (fourth paragraph).

You have to make sure that you provide relevant details that are helpful to the reader. This
means that the reader should be given complete details so that he can reach a proper
conclusion.

 Conclusion:
This is a very crucial part of your writing because you have to mention the purpose of your
writing again (to summarise things up). In other words, you have to rephrase the thesis
statement.

Then, wrap up the important points and offer them some extra help and assistance (if
required). In this way, you will properly conclude your writing.

 Written by,
 Your full name (or signature).
 Date (if not included at the beginning).
When writing an account, you should try to be natural. If you are using “fancy vocabulary”
just to create an impression, then it will do more harm than good.

Therefore, focus more on providing relevant details.

 The use of complex words should be prevented if it disturbs the fluency of the
response.
 The candidate could have developed the second content point in a better way to give a
wider response to the reason the incident took place.
 You should spend some extra time, in the end, to read your response and correct
the grammatical mistakes and error.
 In report and account, you should prevent giving unnecessary opinions and personal
evaluations (unless asked) to keep the response relevant and unbiased.
 You should be writing in a literary way.