This email came just in the nick of time before I start to pull hair out of my head in frustration, simply because I was not able to find any email that was worthy of criticism. The email is as follows:
From: MY<aaa@ppp.edu.sg>
Date: 2009/2/16
Subject: WEAR YOUR SHOES
To:tamsy05@gmail.com
Dear All
please make sure your wear covered shoes tomorrow, we have some visitor from YY international. if you don’t, i will throw you out of the lab. thanks
MY
Although I have to applaud the sender for her conciseness and clarity shown in the email, but I would like to point out a few mistakes.
Violation #1: Broken Grammar
The sentences are not capitalized as the first word in each sentence begins with a small letter. In addition, there is a lack of proper punctuation. She may want to run a spell checker to detect all these errors.
Violation#2: Negative Wording and Inappropriate Tone
The sender does not use a tactful approach in reminding the people in the lab to wear shoes, instead from her tone used, she seemed to be coercing them to do so. This does not seem right especially when emailing to people who are subordinate to you. But then again, she might be attempting to be humorous, which may fail, as the receiver in the email may not know that she’s trying to be funny.
Violation #3: Subject Field
She wrote the subject field in capital letters, which should be discouraged as she seemed as if she was shouting and commanding others to do what they were told by her. Instead, she may want to use asterisks or bold formatting to emphasize important words.
Violation #4: Absence of Signing off
Violation #5: Ambiguity of the word “tomorrow”
She should state the exact date following “tomorrow” to ensure that the receiver get the date right as some of them might check their emails late.
This is my suggestion on how this email can be improved:
Dear All,
Please do make sure that you wear covered shoes tomorrow, on the 17th February, as we are expecting visitors from YY International. I would appreciate your efforts in doing so.
Thank you for your kind understanding and cooperation in this matter.
Yours Sincerely,
MY
5 Comments
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Hey Tammy,
I wanted to laugh out when i read the irony in politeness. “if you don’t, i will throw you out of the lab. thanks” She included a note of thanks right after threatening to throw people out of the lab! I am beginning to wonder if people do have basic email courtesy. It seems like a trend that generally people are sending mail similar to MY’s. I think she could have presented what she wanted to say in a more tactful manner. Even though it’s an important issue, it’s no excuse for lack of politeness.
Violation #2: The benefit of the doubt is that she could be trying to be funny. Words that are not chosen correctly often convey the wrong meaning, tone and emotion. It’s an important point to note.
Kenneth
Hello!
Terry’s here. I would like to ask whether your group kept my ES2007s textbook. This is because i forgot to get the book back from your group before i left the tutorial room. Thank You!
Hey Tammy,
I feel that you have critically evaluated the problems in the letter.(Making me a little to comment!)
I do agree with you that the letter is not specific and information like where, time and when the visitors will come so that everyone will be well-prepared for their visit. I also think that signing off with the name and designation would be more appropriate for those who may not know who the sender was or may have friends with similar names.
On top of that, I think information such as the purpose for the visiting of the YY international can be included to keep everyone informed and let them have an idea of what they can do or during that time. This is to prevent any miscommunication between both parties which might result in any misconduct.
Lastly, I feel that the writer should not use words like ‘throw you out of the lab’ as it sounds rather impolite. That’s all I want to say and I hope it helps.
Thank you, Tammy, for sharing this example e-mail. I like the way you evaluate it on the basis of the 7Cs. You also do a fine job of providing a much-improved alternative version.
One minor criticism on language use: “Although I have to applaud the sender for her conciseness and clarity shown in the email, but I would like to point out a few mistakes.”
You have to be careful not to use a subordinating conjunction such as “although” in one clause and then a coordinating conjunction like “but” in the next in this manner. Just eliminate the “but.”
I really appreciate your effort! ( I do wonder though why no one has made comments on this post. Your group members seem to be MIA, missing in action.)
Dear Tammy,
How’s the FYP? Heard you have run into some trouble in lab again. Hang in there man!
Okay I confess, I’ve been MIA for weeks. It’s my bad, I’m trying to make amends now, since I’m more sober.
Well, you’re blessed to have found such an email in the nick of time! I had to dig mine up and I couldn’t bring myself to write it (I blame the medication) properly for quite some time. It appears that MY in the above post must have been incredibly peeved to make such a comment. (Hope she doesn’t defenestrate you people.. wait there are doors in the lab. Never mind. *Trying hard to focus.)
I agree with Brad, your direct critique is pretty refreshing, and I only have a minor comment on your suggestion. I don’t often come across letters where the author of the letter personalizes general things, for example, appreciation. Perhaps this is done just in case the author is not the only party that would appreciate. Thus a common way to state it would be, “Your efforts would be much appreciated”.
By the way, “But then again” seems pretty much like spoken casual English me. You might want to change that.