What the exam asks
Any of these five text types can appear as an unseen non-literary passage in Paper 1 (and as a body of work in the individual oral or HL essay). Paper 1 guiding questions on informational or instructional texts typically target:
- Presentation of authority: How do text and layout work together to establish expertise and trust?
- Usability and persuasion: In what ways does the writer use structure and design to guide the reader’s actions?
- Representation: How does this guide book represent the destination and appeal to a specific implied reader?
To reach the top levels (4 and 5 marks in Criteria A and B), you must look past the surface facts and analyse how the text constructs its authority and positions its audience.
Core ideas
1. Conventions of the five text types
| Text type | Primary purpose | Key conventions (language and design) |
|---|---|---|
| Report | Present findings and recommendations to an organization or the public | Executive summary, numbered sections, passive voice (“it was observed”), data tables, hedging (cautious wording such as “indicates”), bulleted recommendations. |
| Encyclopaedia entry | Provide an objective, reference overview of a topic | Third-person statements, high lexical density (many information-carrying words packed into each sentence), chronological or thematic subheadings, cross-references or hyperlinks, no first- or second-person pronouns (I, we, you). |
| Textbook | Teach a subject systematically to students | Learning objectives, bolded glossary terms, annotated diagrams, sidebars, inclusive “we” paired with direct questions or study tasks. |
| Set of instructions | Direct a user through a sequential task safely and accurately | Numbered chronological steps, imperative verbs (“insert”, “fasten”), second-person address (“you”), warning icons, exploded diagrams (drawings that show the parts pulled apart), minimal adjectives. |
| Guide book | Inform and entice travellers while curating their experience | Dual register (sensory, exaggerated descriptions alongside practical logistics like prices such as $45, maps and star ratings), imperatives (“don’t miss”), cultural framing. |
2. How “neutral” texts position the reader
No text is truly neutral. Writers of informational texts shape meaning through four hidden choices:
- Selection and omission: What facts are included, and whose perspectives are left out? An encyclopaedia entry on an industrial dam might detail hydro-electric output (selection) while omitting displaced communities (omission).
- Ordering and hierarchy: Placing a point first—or in a bolded callout box—signals that it is the most important truth.
- Register and voice: An impersonal register (passive verbs, nominalization, which turns actions into nouns as in “the implementation of”, and third-person) hides the human author, making claims sound like indisputable laws of nature. Conversely, an imperative register (“Always disconnect the power”) creates an unequal power relationship: the text commands, and the reader obeys.
- Emphasis and framing: Calling a forest “unexploited timber resources” in a report frames nature as an economic commodity.