Homework5 calvin

Analyze This Document (P. 97)

Analyze the Sentences

The document appears to be a letter from a 'publisher' to an unknown party who is going to hold a 'bookseller's show' the sender wishes to participate in. Ignoring the letter's overall content, tone and purpose (which will be discussed later), following are the letter's ten sentences' strengths and weaknesses:

Sentence1

Strength: Plain English. The sentence is easy to understand.

Weakness:

1. Use of abstract words such as 'great'. If sentences following this can explain in what ways are the books 'great', then this weakness can be overlooked.

2. Misleading purpose. By beginning the letter with such a sentence, it misleads readers to think the sender intends to sell books to them, when we can infer later that, such is not the sender's purpose.

Sentence2

Strength:

1. Emphasizes the Positive; Courteous. Complimenting fosters better relationship. Moreover, it encourages the party to put in more zest into the show.

2. You-Benefit. It lets the receiver know that their announcement in Publishers Weekly was effective.

3. Use of italics to differentiate book titles from text.

Weakness:

1. Use of 'great' again. The sentence that follows offers no further explanation either. Instead, the word can be substituted with concrete words, phrases or ideas like, "…, it is really wonderful to give the town access to the latest books, thereby also encouraging people to read."

2. Correct References. Are the organizers putting up a 'bookseller's show' or a 'book exhibition/exposition? Does the announcement in Publishers Weekly really read, 'show'? Because generally, organizers of such events usually use 'exhibition' rather than 'show'.

Sentence3

Strength: Powerful; energetic. It shows how eager the sender is.

Weakness: Inappropriate; too informal. Assuming the parties are not on close terms, the 'fun' tone is very inappropriate and do not sound professional.

Sentence4

Strength: Clear idea/purpose.

Weakness: Slack words. The word 'get' not only sounds unprofessional, but also weak. 'Rent' might be a stronger word for 'get'.

Sentence5

Strength: Purposeful. Looking at the sentence alone, it can be understood why the sender would like to airbrush.

Weakness: Inappropriate Tone. Saying, 'it would be a neat thing to do' is unfortunately just the 'un-neat thing to do' when writing professional business letters. It can be overlooked if the sender is familiar with the correspondent and it is to be mailed to the correspondent's domicile address, to be read informally.

Sentence6

Strength: Establishes credibility. This sentence lends some credibility to the sender's ability in airbrushing.

Weakness: Unnecessary. What is the real purpose of the letter? Does the inclusion of this fact in any way affect the purpose and outcome of the letter?

Sentence7

Strength: Projects sender's capabilities. The sentence tries to prove the sender's capability in sign painting and gives credibility to the author's expertise in sign painting.

Weakness: Poor paragraph organization. As the final sentence of the paragraph, it is highly unexpected to see another idea introduced way at the end, in this case, a second book.

Sentence8

Strength: Informative. Tells organizers how the sender may qualify to be taken seriously.

Weakness:

1. Pompous and unnecessary. Although the sender might not have intended to sound pompous, it may strike readers just so. Furthermore, it may seem to the organizers that the sender is desperate to receive attention.

2. Use of abbreviations. Spell out the abbreviations unless they are very long and are repeated over and over again in the text.

Sentence9

Strength: Thoughtful. It is very thoughtful of the sender to think of organizers' publicity.

Weakness: Besides being unnecessary, is the sender really being thoughtful of organizers' publicity? Should the organizers not read this line as a concealed desire of the sender to increase his/her publicity?

Sentence10

Strength: Purposeful.

Weakness: Yet another idea and right at the end of letter. Aside from the very informal tone, the use of 'P.S.' tends to make people assume the sender did not plan out and write the letter and hence forgot about the idea when writing the letter and had to use a 'P.S.' to somehow fit it back in. It portrays the sender in bad light; 'highly un-professional'.

Overall, this is a very ill-written letter, probably written void planning and revision. Firstly, aside from the inappropriate tone adopted by the sender, the purpose of the letter is not clear. Does the sender want to compliment the organizers, introduce him/her or wants to know just the cost of renting a booth space? Secondly, is the sender a publisher or actually an aspiring writer trying to promote his/her own books? If the sender is indeed a publishing house, why are only two books introduced? In what ways do these two books particularly outstand from all other books in their publishing house? Therefore, the sender needs to consider under what identity is he/she writing the letter, as a publisher or as a writer? Hence, to revise the letter would be to rewrite it in brief and with one main purpose: to ask about the cost of renting booth space.

Following is my revised version of the letter:

(Revised)

Dear Sirs,

I'd like to inquire about the cost of renting booth space at the book exhibition to be held this summer at Taipei. As an aspiring writer, I am grateful for the pains you have taken to hold a book exhibition on behalf of book lovers and writers, and I would like to rent a booth space to promote my two books, T-Shirt Art and How to Make Money in the Sign Painting Business. As both my books are hobby-centered, I also hope I can airbrush live at the exhibition in order to promote my book and at the same time, make the exhibition fun.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope to be provided with cost details and all other details about the exhibition.

Yours sincerely,

Neville Crosby