Communicating Through Email Page 3
ADVERTISEMENT
1
2
3
4
5
6
710.2 Be Aware of Your Relationship with Your Reader
Being aware of who your reader is, their position and their relationship to you is very
important. Getting the correct tone is central to writing an email that will be well
received and will achieve the purpose for which it was written.
The following two case studies, taken from emails written on campus, illustrate how
things can go wrong.
10.2.1 Get the right style and tone for your reader
In this fi rst case study a student needed to write to someone in authority to get
permission to use a facility in the faculty. See Figure 1.
Career Fair - Message (Rich Text)
deanfas
nus.edu.sg
@
Career Fair
Hi Lee
I’m an engineering student from NUS’ Careers Club, organising a career fair
next month. The committee has spotted a place. We are wondering if
we cd use the corridor outside AS6 for the booths we will be putting up.
That is a great spot for us to put the booths — heavy traffi c and all.
Let me know soonest possible if this is OK?
Awaiting your positive response!
Marcus
75
Figure 1: Unsuccessful email asking for permission
Here the problem is that the student has written in the way in which he would write to
a friend, which is not appropriate when writing to someone in authority. Notice these
faulty usages:
Inexplicit subject line: What about the career fair?
●
Inappropriate salutation: Hi Lee
●
Short forms: I’m, cd
●
Incomplete sentence: Awaiting...which has no subject
●
Inappropriate punctuation: Let me know soonest if this is OK?
●
Inappropriate tone: Let me know soonest if this is OK?
●
Informal vocabulary: a great spot
●
No expression of gratitude
●
Lack of polite closing phrase
●
Inappropriate signature: Signing off without surname implies familiarity.
●
ADVERTISEMENT
0 votes
Related Articles
Related forms
Related Categories
Parent category: Business