Assignment 1: Formal Letter (Descriptive Reflection)
Dear Professor Brad,
My name is Tan Wei Jie and I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself as your student from Effective Communication Class T6. I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a diploma in mechatronics. I am currently enrolled in mechanical engineering in Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) to further pursue my studies in engineering.
The reason I chose to pursue a diploma in mechatronics is due to my interest in a subject called Design & Technology (D&T) which I took for 3 years during my secondary school days. I enjoyed the subject because it is one of the subject which allows me to have the freedom of being creative and innovative when brainstorming for an idea or a solution to solve the challenges faced in real life. Additionally, I would have to bring my ideas to life and had to create a physical prototype to demonstrate its function to solve the challenges faced. During the process of creating the prototype, I really enjoyed the hands-on experience such as operating the lathe and milling machine with some guidance from the workshop technician. Therefore, this is the reason which inspired me to pursue engineering as my career choice.
One communication strength is I am confident that I can verbally communicate with others. For instance, I can hold conversations naturally without wondering what to say. In addition, I am able to work and communicate well with other people who I do not know for group projects and assignments. However, I sometimes may not be clear or concise when it comes to communicating through email. For example, I may tend to consolidate too many ideas or description in a sentence which causes it to be lengthy and unclear to the reader. Hence, the reader may be confused about the message I am trying to convey through email.
Upon the completion of this module, I hope that I can further improve on how I can properly structure my email writing to make it more clear and concise. Another goal which I had in mind is to improve my language to avoid any grammatical errors when writing an email and communicating verbally. I believe that these takeaways from the module will enable me to be more prepared for the working life after I graduate from SIT.
Lastly, I would like to thank you for taking your time to read my email.
Yours sincerely,
Tan Wei Jie
Updated on 28/1/2021
Blogs commented on:
- Sum Jin Yao
- Gay Bing Shuen,
- Woravuth Chong
- Nasrul Hazwan
- Chin Yong Sheng
- "I enjoyed the subject because it is one of the subject which..." should be in plural form since you are referring to one out of many.
ReplyDelete- "One communication strength is I am confident that...." I would rephrase it as "One communication strength that I am confident in is..."
- missing punctuation in "...without wondering what to say and also able to work..." this feels like your thoughts not just includes what you want to say, but also your ability to work with others, which is a separate subject of the sentence.
Overall your letter is clear and concrete. There's only a few language mistakes such as the usage of 'a' and 'an'. Other than that, I believe you can improve your ability in typing an email.
Dear Leonard,
DeleteThanks for pointing out my mistakes in the formal letter writing. I will take note of your suggestion and make some changes to correct it. On the other hand, I would like to thank you for the compliments made for my letter.
Yours sincerely,
Tan Wei Jie
Dear Wei Jie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this courteous and well-developed letter. You cover the various assignment requirements and add fine concrete detail, all while imbuing the message with a considerate tone. The sharing about how you developed an interest in design and engineering and on your various characteristics, including your communication skills, is especially telling in terms of how it allows us to see into your world and get to know something about your personality.
I like the honest self critique in the section about perceived weakness in particular, and you can rest assured knowing you will be having more writing opportunities as the term progresses. We can start now though looking at language use: Your language fluency in this letter is quite good, but there are a few issues in caps and sentence structure to take note of:
1. overuse of capitalization
-- see https://www.hartford.edu/about/offices-divisions/office-marketing-communication/resources/editorial-style-guide.aspx#
2. sentence structure
-- Additionally, I would have to bring my ideas to life which I had to create a physical prototype to demonstrate its function to solve the challenges faced. > (problematic conjunction)
Additionally, I would have to bring my ideas to life AND had to create a physical prototype to demonstrate its function to solve the challenges faced.
-- ...which led me to go on to pursue a diploma in Mechatronics and currently pursuing a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering. > (lack of parallel verb structure) ?
-- For instance, I can hold conversations naturally without wondering what to say and also able to work with other people ... > (lack of parallel verb structure) ?
Let's work on this. I look forward to seeing how you can polish the letter.
Best wishes,
Brad
Dear Prof. Brad,
DeleteThanks you and I appreciate for your constructive feedbacks and compliments. I look forward to improve my use of language and sentence structure under your guidance. Additionally, thanks again for pointing out the few issues in caps and sentence structure in my letter. I will take note of them and make necessary amendments to my letter. Lastly, I would like to sincerely apologise for making a late reply and acknowledgment to your comment.
Yours sincerely,
Tan Wei Jie