When we’re writing emails at work, it’s important to distinguish between casual usage and more formal language.
A casual tone is appropriate when we’re writing to our colleagues, but we need a different tone when writing to our supervisors or to an external person. And no emojis, of course!
Test yourself
These examples include the casual version. See if you can change it to a more formal version. I will give a suggested version in the answer key.
This is something you might write to your colleagues internally following an event:
- There was a huge amount of participants at the event yesterday. We almost ran out of coffee and snacks at the coffee break. We had to find extra chairs from other rooms nearby.
- People told us it was a great event! Some participants came to pat us on the back after the event.
- Please give us a shout if you can help with the next one in July.
- So, thanks to our popularity 😊, next time we need a bigger room, more coffee and snacks and more help.
Suggested more formal version
- Many more participants attended than expected and we were a little short on supplies at the coffee break. Also, as there were not enough chairs we had to get additional ones from nearby conference rooms.
- We were publicly congratulated on the successful event. Some participants came to personally thank us afterwards.
- Please let us know if you can help with the next event in July.
- In summary, for the July event we would like to request:
– a larger room with more chairs,
– more coffee break supplies, and
– additional assistance in setting up and running the event.
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Author: Carol Waites
Presentation/editing by Christina O’Shaughnessy
https://worldwidewriting.org/
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Carol Waites (PhD)
Email: carolswritingtips@gmail.com
For more writing tips, consult my website:
https://carolswritingtips.com/writingtips/
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