Assignment 1: Formal Letter
Dear Professor Blackstone,
I would like to take this opportunity to
introduce myself as a student in the CVE1281 Effective Communication module. My
name is Ken Wen and I am an international student from Malaysia. Having
graduated from Singapore Polytechnic last year gave me some fundamental
knowledge of civil engineering. With this knowledge I am able to further my
studies here in Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). Since young, I was
inspired by my father’s business and it sparked my curiosity in civil
engineering. I was motivated to follow my father’s footsteps and become the
successor of his business when he retires.
The lack of ability to communicate
effectively has been my greatest weakness. I always had issue with conveying my
ideas to the audience, as I am not able to find the correct words to deliver my
thoughts. I tend to stutter most of the time during oral presentation because I
doubt the choice of words I use every time I explain something. I have a
constant fear that my audience does not understand the message I deliver.
However,
I am capable of identifying the type of audience I am communicating with and
use the “ideal” tone to convey my messages to different groups of audience. For
example, when talking to my friends, I would usually use a casual tone that
includes Singlish. But when I am presenting to my superior or lecturer, I will
use a formal tone and avoid using Singlish.
My friends would describe me as a determined and
optimistic individual. I have the tendency of following things through and
achieve my goals once I set my mind to it. As failures are inevitable in our
life, I often view failures as experiences and these experiences allow me to have a better understanding of the situation.
By the end of this module, I hope to present
my ideas confidently to my target audience and develop more effective oral
presentation skills.
Yours Sincerely,
Loh Ken Wen
Hi Ken Wen,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the written letter. It was concise in terms of telling me about your background, communication strength, weakness and about your goals. I also feel that you did well in terms of providing illustrations to showcase your communication strength and weakness. The letter overall seems well structured and put together.
Some pointers however, for you to take note and improve would be:
1) 'Having graduated from Singapore Polytechnic last year gave me some fundamental knowledge of civil engineering.' A punctuation should be placed after 'year' and you could further shorten the sentence by replacing the words 'gave me some' with 'I gained'. Furthermore, I think it should be '.... in civil engineering' instead of 'of civil engineering'.
2) 'I am capable of identifying the type of audience I am communicating with and use the “ideal” tone to convey my messages to different groups of audience.' There is no need for the word ideal to be put in quotation marks.
3) 'For example, when talking to my friends, I would usually use a casual tone that includes Singlish. But when I am presenting to my superior or lecturer, I will use a formal tone and avoid using Singlish.' There is no need for the word, singlish, to be capped.
That would cover it. Looking forward to reading more of your letters in the near future.
Thank you and regards,
Thoufeek Ansari
Dear Ken,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this clear, well-developed letter. You address all the touchpoints of the assignment and you provide some specific detail. I really appreciate learning about how your interest in engineering developed from your father's profession and his business. You also give us readers some insight into who you are in terms of character.
To take this letter a notch up in level, you might thread the expected need to take over your family business with either your strengths and weaknesses in communication or with your career goals in general. (For example, what does a business leader need to do that requires good speaking skills?) As it stands, you do a decent job of discussing your strength and weakness in communication but there is a disconnect between these and your overall goals.
I also appreciate the fluency of this letter.
I look forward to learning more about you this term.
Cheers,
Brad
Dear Kenwen,
ReplyDeleteI have read through your introduction letter and it is good to know your strength, weakness and goals. I think I can understand some of your difficulties since I'm also an international student.
During reading your letter, I want to give some advice to improve your letter. Since Thoufeek has already pointed some. Here are the rest that I want to mention.
In the second paragraph, by grammar usage, you should write "I always have issue with..." instead of " I always had issue with..". (always + present tense)
I also want to recommend you to add the pronouns to make the sentence more perfect. For example, "... the choice of words that I use everytime when I am explaining something." rather than "... the choice of words I use every time I explain something."
And you also should write formally in letter. For example, the sentence "...when talking to my friends, I would usually use a casual tone.." seems informal. I want to advise you to change it in fomal way by "...when I am talking to my friends, I usually use a casual tone..".
I think if you add in some information about since what time you have been in Singapore and start your study, your letter will be more perfect. I hope my comments are useful to improve your writing skills and nice to meet you.
Best wishes,
Thazin