Making a Passage Less Formal

Keeping the Promise: Recommendations for Deposit Insurance Reform, published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in April 2001, is a report written in a formal style. Study the introduction, which is labeled page 1 but is actually page 8 of the 29-page file. Notice the characteristics of the writer’s style that contribute to the formality of the tone:

Identify one example of each of these characteristics and explain how you would revise the example to make the style less formal. Present your findings in a 500-word memo to your instructor. (See Chapter 9 for a discussion of memos.)