BUSINESS ENGLISH LESSON 7

E-mail / ЭЛЕКТРОННАЯ ПОЧТА

1. Read the following article from a business magazine and discuss the questions w ith a partner

The use of e-mail continues to grow, but there are suggestions across the industry that its popularity will begin to decline quickly if measures aren't put in place to guarantee access, availability and security.

According to a report published recently, standards in written English are falling. This is because people see the e-mail as an informal way of communicating where the normal rules of grammar and punctuation do not apply. In a survey by MSM, two-thirds of those aged 18-24 said that they were more concerned about the content of their e-mails than grammatical correctness. Of older users, one in four also admitted they were not concerned about grammatical correctness in their messages.

Surprisingly, in the same survey most people said they were annoyed by errors in the e-mails they received. This was a bigger problem with conventional letters. In another survey bosses said they would not do business with companies whose correspondence had mistakes in it. Unbelievably, they thought it was worse than charging too much.

a Do you agree that e-mails are an informal way of communicating?

b If .someone sends you a badly written e-mail, do you find it annoying? Are you more tolerant if you know they are not writing in their first language?

c Is there anything else about e-mails that annoys you e.g. not using a sensible title in the subject line, not including the original message when replying, etc.?

d Do you think the bosses in the survey were right? Why / Why not?

2. Read the following e-mails from a company called CiclosCielone to a customer, David Holmbrook. Re-write the e-mails and correct the mistakes in punctuation and grammar. Also change anything which you do not think is appropriate in stvle. Then compare your e-mails with the versions in the key list. Underline any phrases which you think are useful for this type of e-mail.

a) Dear mr Holmbrook

Thanks for the order. I just wish to conferm that we have recieved your order details and we have started to process the order. If your item is not instock or if there are are any dlspach problems we will contact you within the next 24/36 hrs. Please contact us if you not have received you order within 7 days at orders@ciclosciclone.com so we can resolve the issues, thankyou once again for your order. Kind Regards.

CiclosCielone (Despatch Team)

b) Hi there,

Re the modification thats not a problem the whole amounut for your order will be Ј84.85. I look forward to hearing from you, Best wishes Diego Martin

c) Dear dave

We appoligise for the delay, but we have worked out the cost of your shipping amounts of the modified order, it is going to cost you Ј6.99 more.

To activate this transaction we will need to re-take your card details by phone to process the payment manully. We will need the long number on the front of your card, the expire date, and the security code on the back of card.

Thank you for you patience and shopping with CiclosCielone, I look forward to hearing from you,

Best wishes

Diego

d) ok Dave, will sort this out for you, and it shall be with you soon! Sorry again.

Best wishes

Diego

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