Business Writing

English 3130 040 CRN 83895 Minimester 1 Fall 2008

Correspondence Suite

Suite

Worth: 15% of final grade
Due: Sept 3rd(parts due earlier)

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is for you to improve upon your business correspondence skills and better understand the various correspondence genres.

For this project you will be writing several pieces of business correspondence. Each piece should follow the conventions of its genre, while maintaining a professional tone, attention to audience, and a clear purpose. You will be writing five pieces of correspondence, all due 9/3 unless otherwise noted:

• An introductory email (due early: 8/27 by end of class)
• A response email
• An inquiry or special request letter
• A complaint letter
• A memo to me explaining it all

The letters and memo will be due on paper, and the emails on the class forum.

The parts in detail:

An Introductory Email (due 8/27 by end of class): This is a fairly fun and easy part of the assignment in which you will introduce yourself to me and to the class. Using the class forum, write an introduction to the class, following proper email format. Tell us who you are by providing information like your background, your career choice & major, and relevant personal information like hobbies, favorite color, favorite band, place of employment, what you did last summer, and so on. You may want to draw on information that your classmates will need if they are going to work with you. Keep in mind your two distinct audiences: me (your teacher) and your classmates. Remember we will all be reading the introductions to the class, so make them interesting and informative. Make sure you apply the concepts from our readings on correctly writing emails. For example choose a clear subject line. You may include a suggested "question of the day" or "tip of the day" (can be something you know or want to know). If yours is used you will get extra credit!

A Response Email: After reading your classmates' posts, respond to at least one other post by 9/3 class time. This should be a somewhat substantive response--no one word or even one sentence responses. Follow proper email format here also.

An inquiry or special request letter: Choose a real situation in your life (which can include a situation from your home, work, school, extra-curricular activities, and so on) and, following the guidelines in the book, write an inquiry or special request letter. If you cannot come up with a situation in your life, feel free to create a realistic situation that you may deal with in your career. Although this does not need to be sent, do write it to a real person at a real company. Due 9/3 in class.

A Complaint Letter: Choose a real situation in your life and, following the guidelines in the book, write a complaint letter. Feel free to use the situation and outline from your reading response. Although this does not need to be sent, do write it to a real person at a real company. Final version due 9/3 in class.

A Memo to me explaining it all: Finally, write a memo (in proper format) describing and explaining your assignment to me. Discuss each piece and describe what techniques you used to write it and how well you think it meets its goals. For example:

• Discuss the choices you made with things like content and tone for the introductory email and response. For example, how did you choose your content and tone to fit your audience and purpose?
• For the inquiry letter, describe the situation that led up to the letter. How did you shape the letter to both follow the guidelines in the book, but also fit your needs? How did you find the name and address info?
• For the complaint letter, also describe the situation that led up to the letter. Explain what your goals are for the letter and how you want the people to respond. Describe how you used techniques like arrangement, tone, and even content to serve your purpose and audience. Also cover how you found the name and address info.

Use this memo to explain any areas especially where you went against what was covered in class.

Attach your various letters to the memo and hand in all the letters (email and response due online in the forum) and memo at the start of class 9/3 on paper. Do include the memo, your complaint letter, along with the inquiry/special request letter. Make sure everything follows the proper format (feel free to check out the slides and samples, located on the resources page). The whole correspondence suite will be graded together portfolio-style. Do make sure you complete and hand in all five pieces on time, as not doing so (with out a late card) will negatively impact your grade.

General Feedback from this class

• Memos do not use letterhead, so do not create letterhead for them. They may have a different company-related design, but not letterhead.

• If you make or use letterhead in your letters make it clear this is letterhead and not a formatting mistake for your address.

• Start your memos with an introduction telling me what you are doing in the memo.

• In your complaint letter make it clear what you want from the, when you want it by and why. And be specific. Don't just say you want them to change how they treat customers and that they must get back to your in 2 weeks. Tell that what changes you want made and how to get back to you.

• Also, there were some of the same problems below that previous students had.

General Feedback from previous classes with this assignment:

This is feedback based on what the previous class did (or didn't do). Hopefully it will help you.:

• Make sure you initial your memos (on the "from" line, in pen put your initials—like signing a letter)
• Remove your hyperlinks (those blue underlines) from any print documents. They cannot be actually used in print documents (no mouse to click with) and look less professional (and like you don't know how to use MS Word)
• Use a colon in the salutations line of business (or any formal) letter—do not use a comma (but commas are fine for personal letters and email)
• Do include information you could find out—whether it be real names and addresses or information that would be on websites or elsewhere
• Page numbers: do not number the first page or the only page (this changes for reports and the such), but do include numbers if the document is longer than a page (so number the second page of a letter)
• “You” use: use “you” only when directly referring to your audience.
  • Good use example: When writing the email to you and the class I kept the tone causal and friendly. (This is good because the writer is talking directly to me, the reader, about me. This is the way it should be used)
  • Bad use example: When searching for jobs online you often have difficulties narrowing down your choices. (Bad example—what the writer means here is something more like “many people” or even “I” [as in the writer]. They do not actually mean me, the reader, and reading such a thing might be insulting to the reader whom may have no problems at all narrowing down choices. "You" use in such a way often tells the reader what she thinks or feels, often unintentionally, but still does and can upset them. So, instead use things like “many people”, “one”, or even “I”.)
• Make sure you include your address when writing letters at the top—either as letterhead or aligned with the signature block.