Business Correspondence Critique

The email below was sent by a student from a particular department in the Faulty of Engineering to a Management Assistance Officer in the Office of External Relations of the same faculty regarding students helpers for the open house.

__________________________________________________________

From: Alicia Tan
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:42 AM
To: John Lee
Cc: Paul Koh; Shawn Lim; Clara Cho
Subject: Students helping for open house

Dear John,

Here are 4 people that can help out at the open house and their respective details. In summary, its 3 people on Sat, 2 on Sun. Do refer to details below on their available time slots.

Do let us know if you require us to attend any briefing sessions, when to collect the T-shirts and any other details. I've cc them this email as well, so you can easily reply to all of us.

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Alicia Tan
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Firstly, Alicia should have included her department in the subject title as the reader is a Management Assistance Officer in the Office of External Relations in the Faulty of Engineering and is most probably in charge of more than one department of students. By doing so, the reader would be able to immediately identify that these students would be helping out with that particular department’s booth and not wait to read the entire email before figuring it out.

The salutation used in this case seemed to be inappropriate as John was not a friend but someone Alicia was collaborating with. She should have addressed him as Mr Lee.

The overall content of the email was concise and complete except for some grammatical errors such as “Here are 4 people that can help out…” which should be “Here are 4 people who can help out…” and “In summary, its 3 people on…” which should be “In summary, there are 3 people on...”

Finally, she could have signed off with the department and faculty she was from instead of just stating her name, which may not bear much significance to the reader. Also, it would be useful for the reader as she did not mention her department in the subject title.

The email could have looked like:
__________________________________________________________
From: Alicia Tan
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:42 AM
To: John Lee
Cc: Paul Koh; Shawn Lim; Clara Cho
Subject: Students Helpers for Open House (MSE department)

Dear Mr Lee,

There are 4 student helpers for the open house and their respective details have been listed below. There will be 3 helpers on Saturday and 2 helpers on Sunday. Please refer to their details below on their available time slots.

Kindly let us know if we are required to attend any briefing sessions or if there are any further instructions.

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Alicia Tan
Material Science & Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
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