Skip to main content

Writing Skills - Invitation

 Many teachers often ask me for help with the topic of 'Invitation' in CBSE's writing skills section. I condense CBSE's questions in this section thus: 

What that means is:

1. There are 2 types of invitation: formal & informal.

2. Formal invitations can be in the form of cards or letters. 

3. Cards are used when you have to invite large numbers of people (anniversaries, marriages, etc.)

4. Letters are used when you invite a few individuals.  Example: judges for a competition, chief guest for a function.

5. Informal invitations are used when your function is informal. Example: birthday celebrations, party for celebrating admission to a prestigious institution.

6. Strictly formal replies are used only by people who have (or should have) enormous egos. Example: bureaucrats, ambassadors.

7. Formal replies are just ordinary formal letters and informal replies are plain informal letters. 

Let me give examples for the above types so that they become clearer. 

1. Formal - Card

Newton Public School, Nagpur is celebrating its 30th Annual Day. On behalf of the principal, draft an invitation card to be sent to parents and well-wishers. 

It's easy to remember the format of a card invitation if you understand it in a sequence like: Who's inviting, which institution, the occasion, when, where, chief guest.

Let us take an example from one of CBSE's question papers. 

You are Dhruv/Deepa. Your father, Sri Dheeraj Garg of Gurugram wants you to draft an invitation to be sent to friends and relatives on the occasion of your elder sister’s marriage. Prepare the invitation giving necessary details in not more than 50 words. [2019] 

Let’s practise:

Ms Lakshmi Sharma, one of the teachers of Sun Public School, Pune has received the national award for teachers. The school is organising a formal function to congratulate her and appreciate her contributions. Draft a formal invitation to be sent to parents and well-wishers on behalf of the principal.

2. Formal - Letter

You are the Director of Apex Orientations, a leading name in coaching for competitive examinations including IIT-JEE and CBSE-PMT. Write letters to the principals of some prestigious schools inviting 2 brilliant students from each institution to attend their Counselling Session free of cost. 

3. Informal Invitation

This is nothing but a usual informal letter. 

Example

Rohit has cleared the CBSE-PMT. He wants to celebrate his admission to Shivaji Medical College, Nagpur by throwing a party to his friends. Write an informal invitation giving details of venue, time and date. 


REPLIES

1. Strictly Formal

Draft a formal reply accepting an invitation to be present on the occasion of the wedding of Ankush S/o Mr & Mrs Shankar of 24, Green Park Road, Kanpur. You are Vikram Gaur MLA.


Answer:


Mr Vikram Gaur MLA & Family thank Mr and Mrs Shankar for inviting them on the occasion of the wedding of their son Ankush at 24, Green Park Road, Kanpur on 17 Aug. They will be present at the venue at 8.00 p.m.
Vikram Gaur
31 July 2022

Example 2:

Write a formal reply expressing your inability to attend the birthday celebrations of your friend Suresh Pradhan of 1235, Vivekananda Marg, Belur. You are Somesh Basu.


Answer:


Mr & Mrs Somesh Basu wish to thank Mr & Mrs Suresh Pradhan for extending an invitation to the birthday celebrations of their son Akshay at their residence 123, Vivekananda Marg, Belur on 20 Aug 2022 and wish the young boy many happy returns of the day but regret their inability to be present personally on account of some previous engagements.
Somesh Basu
31 Jul 2022

2. Formal Replies

You are Arjun /Aparna. Your school has been invited to participate in an inter-school On-the-spot painting competition organised by the Lions Club of your district. As General Secretary of the Painting Club of your school, respond to the invitation.


Answer:


General Secretary

Painting Club

D.N. Public School
Karnal


07 Aug 2022


The President
Lions Club
Karnal

 

Subject: Confirmation of participation


Sir
This refers to your invitation to our school to participate in the inter-school on-the- spot painting competition. We thank you for inviting us and gladly confirm our participation in this interesting competition.


Yours sincerely
Arjun
General Secretary

 3. INFORMAL REPLIES 

You are Aakash/Varsha. You have been invited to attend the wedding of your friend’s sister during summer vacation. Respond to the invitation, regretting your inability to attend it.


Answer:


205, Vasant Kunj
New Delhi


07 Aug 2022


Dear Neha,


Thank you for your cordial invitation on the occasion of your sister’s wedding. I, however, regret my inability to be with you on this happy occasion as we will be leaving for Shimla for a family function on 16 Aug. Please excuse my absence. Do convey my regards and best wishes to the couple.


Yours sincerely
Varsha


PS. You may also be interested in Reading Comprehension for Senior Students

Comments

  1. Definitely a very useful guide for the students as well as the working people as well as the others in general.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! Thank You for sharing your knowledge with us. This blog provides a proper explanation. I have one more piece of information related to the Best Playgroup. Best Playgroup school in Lucknow

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was!  Sleeping with his mouth wide open righ

Romancing the Past

A few years back, when I was teaching Jack Finney’s story The Third Level in a section of grade 12, I put a question to the entire class: “If you get a chance to live in another time, which would you choose – past or future?” Ann [not her real name] put up her hand first. “Future,” she said. In Finney’s story, Charley chooses to go back to Galesburg of 1894. He loves those big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees with branches roofing the streets. It’s a ‘cool’ place whose evenings were “twice as long.” Life was a relaxed affair. People had time to sit out in the evenings, sipping tea and playing music on their guitars. There would be fireflies all around. Peaceful world. Charley wanted that world. My question to the class was in relation to that description of an old world. “My father speaks about the horrors of his childhood,” Ann said. “There was poverty. Not enough food to eat, no proper clothes to wear, no vehicles to carry you… Who wants to go back there?” An

Kashmir and Politics

Book Title: Farooq of Kashmir Authors: Ashwini Bhatnagar & R C Ganjoo Publisher: Fingerprint, New Delhi, 2023 Pages: 330 This book is much more than a biography of Farooq Abdullah. It is a short history of the trouble-torn Kashmir. Though Farooq remains at the centre of the history, his father Sheikh Abdullah is given ample space in the first few chapters. Towards the end of the book, Farooq’s son Omar gets due attention too. Kashmir went through a lot of pain and misery ever since India became independent. Its political leaders as well as their religious counterparts were mostly responsible for all that pain and misery. Add to that the nefarious role played by the neighbouring country of Pakistan. Pakistan has been a thorn in the very heart of Kashmir right from Independence. The political leaders and religious terrorists of that country have left no stone unturned to make Kashmir their own. Understanding Kashmir’s unique condition, independent India had given the st

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Happy Women's Day

I have had more female colleagues than males in my entire teaching career. Probably why I survived so long in the job. Let me celebrate this Women's Day with them. I haven't been able to get hold of the pics all of them and I express my immense grief on leaving out quite many.  That's my first school where I was a math teacher. You may not recognise me. I'm the second one from left in the last row. This was St Joseph's School, Shillong. I learnt the art of teaching in that school. It was a convent school with only girl students. I still remember a lot of them, my first students. I know I wasn't very kind to them. Math teachers can't be kind - that was what I thought in those days. My own teachers had created that impression in my consciousness and the subconscious as well. All those girls are now mothers and some of them may be grandmothers. Let me tell them that I never meant any harm. I was happy in those days to see them learning math well. Hi, dear ladie