Name: ESL Business Writing Video - Email Tune-up 01
Uploaded: 2020-07-03T02:41:15.000Z
Duration: 9 min 43 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome to email Tuneup theme video podcast to help you improve your business.

Right now, you can get your own personal version of email tuneup.

Adverbs of degree

Just click on the link below or head over to the Web site at www dot business English part dot com.

All right, let's take a look at this email from Simon.

I'll begin by reading through it, and while I'm doing that, I'd like you to see if you can spot some of the errors were going to fix.

Remember, we're looking for problems in mechanics, style and tone.

By that I mean the grammar spelling layout and punctuation.

Then we'll look at the style and tone of the writing style is the way we use words and tone is the overall impression or feeling that the words create The subject is broadcast faulty message procedure and the email begins.

Hi, all first paragraph as discussed with client delivery team when we tried to enable or disable faulty message in future.

We also need to check all PBX lines status second paragraph.

If you have no problem, I will demonstrate the work procedure in my PC tomorrow after lunch around 15 mins.

And then the closing salutation regards Simon.

Let's start by discussing the background to this email.

We can see from the salutation high all that.

It's addressed to more than one person, and we know from Simon that this is an internal company email Simon is writing to some other employees at the same company where he works, and the purpose of the email is to inform his colleagues about a new error message procedure and to invite them to a demonstration.

These are all things to keep in mind as we make changes to the text.

First, let's examine the mechanics of this email by mechanics.

I mean formatting, punctuation and grammar.

We can see right away that this email is clearly organized into paragraphs, with each paragraph making a separate point.

The first paragraph identifies a problem, which is the reason the email is being written.

The second paragraph proposes a solution and asks the readers to help Simon put this solution in place.

Now let's think about how we could improve the formatting, punctuation and grammar of this email, beginning with the first paragraph.

Right away we see a couple of mistakes in grammar, Simon begins by saying as discuss with client delivery team, This verb needs to be a past participle.

The phrase client delivery team needs a V before it, since it's a noun.

And as you can see, we also have two mistakes in capitalization.

The words client and when shouldn't be capitalized, since they aren't the first words in the sentence.

Finally, we need to change the punctuation of this last phrase.

Right now, it's punctuated as if it were a complete sentence, even though it actually completes the thought that's been expressed in the rest of the paragraph.

So instead of a full stop and a capital W here, we need to substitute a comma and a small W.

This turns the entire paragraph into a single complete sentence, which is what we want.

The second paragraph doesn't have any real problems with mechanics.

The only change I'd like to make is to spell out this abbreviation mins, which is short for minutes.

It's not a good idea to use abbreviations unless they're really necessary, since the business email needs toe have a formal style.

All right, let's move on to look at the style of this email and some ways it might be improved.

I think we should first look at the subject line broadcast faulty message procedure.

The main problem here is the vocabulary in English.

We have some standard phrases for describing computer technology.

When a computer displays a message to report a problem, we refer to this as an error message, not a faulty message.

So we need to change this word from faulty to error, and it shouldn't be capitalized either.

And we'll also have to make the same change in the first paragraph from faulty to error.

I think the meaning of this subject line isn't very clear.

If you read the body of the email, you can see that what Simon's talking about is the procedure that the company should use when it broadcasts error messages.

But it's not easy to understand this just by reading the subject line.

So let's create a prep positional phrase to make it completely clear and easy to read.

We can say procedure for broadcasting error messages.

And since we're not talking about just one message, we want this last word messages to be plural, and we'll need to make messages plural in the first paragraph as well.

Now, if you look at the very end of this paragraph, you can see that we have exactly the same problem that we had in the subject line.

This final phrase check all PBX lines status is confusing because it's missing some of the very short English words that we use to add structure to our writing, such as articles and propositions.

We should begin by moving the word status towards the front of the sentence closer to the main verb, which is check let's delete status at the end and move it up here, where we also need to add an article.

The now we have check the status and will need to add a proposition.

We also need to check the status of all PBX lines Now.

In the second paragraph, I see two things we need to change.

Simon's used the wrong proposition when he says he'll demonstrate the work procedure in his PC, this should be on his PC.

I also think we need to make the last phrase of this paragraph a little clearer when he says around 15 minutes in parentheses.

What he means is that the demonstration will last about 15 minutes.

I'm going to remove these parentheses and create a complete sentence to express that thought.

The demonstration will take around 15 minutes.

I think that covers all the style changes we need to make.

So finally, let's go back and re read the entire email for problems of tone, starting with the salutation beginning of business email with High all seems to make the tone a little too informal, even though this is an internal company memo.

So let's change the greeting to dear colleagues and remember that we want to capitalize each word in the salutation.

I don't think the first paragraph has any issues of tone, but in the second paragraph, I think we should change this introductory phrase.

Remember, we want to avoid using negative words like problem if we can help it.

Instead, let's try to stress the positive aspects of this sentence.

Simon wants to help his colleagues solve a problem, and he wants to make things as easy as possible for his colleagues.

So we can say something like, if it's convenient for you to emphasize the writers willingness to cooperate.

And with those changes, I think we've made Simon's email a lot clearer, stronger and more effective.

So let's hit, send and get this message out to his colleagues.

Now you can get your own personal version of email tuneup.

Just click on the link below or head over to the website at www dot business English part dot com.