Wall Street Institute has just offered an immersion for Secretaries! Regina Rezende, former teacher of WSI Berrini was responsible for the event, that happened for the fourth consecutive year and was a massive success. This edition was called "Telephone English", and aimed the practice of oral skills. In October we will offer the second edition of "Immersion Day for Secretaries", this time focusing on written skills: "E-mail English for Secretaries".
In order for you to start getting ready for the next event, Regina Rezende has sent us some tips to help you write good e-mails:
• Use a ‘subject line’ that summarizes briefly and clearly the content of the message. Your email may be on of hundreds on the recipient´s computer, and you want them to read it when it arrives and then find it again easily in their files.
• Use short, simple sentences. Long sentences are often difficult to read and understand. The most common mistake for learners of English is to translate directly from their own language. Usually the result is a complicated, confusing sentence.
• One subject per email is best. The other person can reply to an email about one thing, delete it, and leave another email in their Inbox that needs more time.
• Be very careful with jokes, irony, personal comments, etc. Humor rarely translates well from one culture to another. And if you are angry, wait for 24 hours before you write. Once you press “Send” you cannot get your email back. It can be seen by anyone and copied and sent around the world. The intimate, informal nature of email makes people write things that they shouldn´t. only write what you would be comfortable saying to the person´s face.
• Take a moment to review and edit what you have written. Is the main point clear? Would some pieces of continuous text be better as bullet points or numbered points? Is it clear what action you want the recipient to take? Would you be happy to receive this email? If in doubt, ask a colleague to quickly look through and make comments.
• Don’t ignore capital letters, punctuation, spelling, paragraphs, and basic grammar. It might be okay when you are writing to a very close friend, but to everyone else it´s an important part of the image that you create. A careless, disorganized email shows the outside world a careless, disorganized mind.
• Use the replies you receive to modify your writing to the same person. If the recipient writes back in a more informal or more formal style, then match that in your future emails to them. If they use particular words or phrases that seem to come from their company culture, or professional area, then consider using those words yourself where they are appropriate.
• Be positive! Look at these words: activity, agreed, evolving, fast, good question, helpful, join us, mutual, productive, solve, team, together, tools, useful. Now look at these: busy, crisis, failure, forget it, hard, I can´t, I won´t, impossible, never, stupid, unavailable, waste. The words you use show your attitude to life.
SOURCE: Email English, Paul Emmerson
COMING SOON! Business Writing for Secretaries
Rio de Janeiro: 25 de setembro
São Paulo: 16 de outubro
Contact: englishforsecretaries@gmail.com
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