Business Correspondence Critique

Hi everyone,

I’ve decided to do the critique on two emails instead as they are both short emails on the same issue. Comparisons could then be made between them so as to further aid our learning.

Here’s a short background on the two emails. The first email is from Straits Times and the other is from TODAY newspaper. Both are rejection emails to decline publishing a letter of mine. (This was not a complain letter as some of you might be inclined to think.) I supposed they did not publish the letter because I sent the letter to them days after the issue had settled down. If you would like to read this letter of mine which I felt was well written, you can request from me directly. Names (other than mine) in the below emails have been changed.


From: Noor Farizah on behalf of STForum
To: Goh Glenn
Subject: Re: Serangoon Gardens controversy - recommendations

Thank you for writing to us. We do appreciate your making the effort.

We receive up to 70 letters each day. Limited space means we can publish only about a dozen every weekday.
This means having to make often-difficult editorial judgments on which letters to publish.

We regret we are unable to publish your letter.

If your letter relates to a matter under the purview of a government department, you may want to visit www.sgdi.gov.sg for a list of officials to contact.

Yours sincerely

Ms Noor Farizah
for Forum Editor
The Straits Times


From: Janice Tan on behalf of NEWS
To: Goh Glenn
Subject: RE: Serangoon Gardens Controversy - Recommendations

Dear Glenn

Thank you for your contribution to our VOICES section, but unfortunately, we will not be able to use your letter at this time.

However, please continue to send your views to TODAY. We try to use as many letters as possible, space permitting.

Once again, thank you for your interest in TODAY.

Best Regards

Janice Tan TODAY did 6234 5678 fax 6876 5432MediaCorp Press 24 Raffles Place #28-01/06 Clifford Centre Singapore 048621 Visit us at www.todayonline.com Mainline: 6236 4886 NewsDesk 1800 236 4888 Advertising and Sales 6359 7959 Distributions 1800 698 6329
Save our planet. Please don't print this e-mail and/or attachments unless you really need to. Thank you.


Critique:

An obvious error from Straits Times (ST) was the failure to use a salutation. It could be a template rejection email, but a simple “Dear Glenn” shows standard courtesy. Other than that, both are courteous emails. They expressed appreciation to the writer for penning the letter and gave simple and general explanations for the letter’s rejection. ST even went a step further by providing another avenue for the writer to voice his/her concerns.

Both emails show high levels of correctness, using formal English and no bad punctuation or spelling errors. They emails are also so short it is difficult to say that they are not concise. Though I felt that the use of ‘thank you’ repetitively in the TODAY email, was a bit redundant.

The emails also show clarity in what they are trying to communicate as they both stated clearly that they are unable to publish the letter, which was the main intention of the emails.

What I do find lacking in the emails are coherence and cohesion, which I felt was sacrificed for more concise replies. The ST email had many short sentences which could have been connected using conjunctions and transitional words. I also felt that TODAY’s second paragraph was a bit abrupt. It could be changed to, “We seek to publish as many letters as space permits, so please continue to send your views to TODAY.”

The ST email shows signs of concreteness by including specific information like “70 letters each day”. The TODAY email was less so. Its explanation, “not be able to use your letter at this time”, does not really convey anything substantial.

Finally, the ST email should have provided contact information at the end of the email like the TODAY email did. This might give added convenience to the addressee.

I apologize for such a long blog post that exceeded the word limit. There were really a lot of things to comment on. Thanks for reading.

Regards,
Glenn