2132

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

E-mail

1. Read the text and find differences between traditional letters and e- mails:

WRITING E-MAIL

When writing an e-mail, you should first fill in the fields for “To:”, “From:”, “Date:”, “Subject”. Sometimes when there is a need to send to more than one recipient, you have to fill in the “Cc:” (carbon copy) and “Bcc:” (blind carbon copy) fields too.

When you send a message to more than one address using the Cc: field, both the original recipient and all the recipients of the carbon copies see the To: and Cc: fields including all the addresses in them. This means that every recipient gets to know the e-mail addresses of all the persons that received your message. This is usually not desirable. Nobody likes their e-mail address exposed to the public.

The Bcc: field helps you deal with the problems created by Cc:. As it is the case with Cc:, a copy of the message goes to every single e-mail address appearing in the Bcc: field. The difference is that neither the Bcc: field itself nor the e-mail addresses in it appear in any of the copies (and not in the message sent to the person in the To: field either). The only recipient address that will be visible to all recipients is the one in the To: field. So, to keep maximum anonymity you can put your own address in the To: field and use Bcc: exclusively to address your message.

It is important to write a subject or title to the e-mail so that the recipient will know what the e-mail is all about. If it is urgent, it is best to indicate the word urgent in the subject field so the recipient will know it is of high importance. Your subject should be short and specific to convey the whole idea of the message.

For the body of the e-mail, start with a salutation. Then start writing your purpose for the e-mail. It is important that you give the full details of why you are writing. Notice that this part is just the same as writing a letter.

You may also add attachments of files and documents to the letter if needed. Do not forget to put your name at the end of the e-mail so the recipient will know from whom the e-mail came from. This is important especially that e- mail addresses are sometimes vague.

There are several important points to remember. E-mail is much less formal than a written letter. E-mails are usually short and concise.

If you are writing to someone you don’t know, a simple “Hello” is adequate. Using a salutation such as “Dear Mr Smith,” is too formal.

When writing to someone you know well, feel free to write as if you are speaking to the person. Use abbreviated verb forms (He’s, We’re, He’d, etc.).

3. Fill in the table according to the following data:

Today Ann Smith (asmit85@gb.net), a personal manager of Edward Hopkins (edhop145@gb.net), has to send an e-mail arranging a business meeting to their business partner Joe Hunter (hunt99@uk.com), a carbon copy to her boss and a blind carbon copy to his assistant manager Alice Parker (alpark@uk.org).

From:

To:

Cc:

Bcc:

Date:

Subject:

4. Read the text and distinguish features required for a correct subject line formulating:

The subject line is one of the most important parts of an e-mail. Yet many people create really bad ones.

The subject line has three main purposes:

summarises the content of the e-mail;

allows the receiver to determine how important and urgent the message is;

allows the user to find the e-mail later on, without having to open it.

The subject line is not for:

trying to the trick the receiver to open it;

writing “hi”, or leaving it blank;

showing off your sense of humour.

If you can, try and fit in all the critical details of your message into the subject line. If you are arranging a meeting, put the date and time. If you have made a decision, put it in the subject line.

5. Basing on the information from the text above divide the following subject lines into two groups according to their quality (good subject lines and bad ones):

Subject: George

Subject: Weekly Meeting moved to 2pm this Friday Subject: Hi

Subject: Purchase of new printer now approved Subject: 5 Ideas for Joanna’s birthday present Subject:

Subject: Team Meeting

Give your comments on bad subject lines.

6. Read the text and formulate its main idea:

BEGINNING AND ENDING E-MAIL MESSAGES

You would never walk into a room, and start talking to someone without at least saying hello. But many people start e-mails without any introduction. They also end without saying goodbye.

Here are some good and bad introductions:

Good

Hello

Hi, Peter

Bad

Dear Ben (a bit formal)

Hello Mr Smith (too formal, unless they are a customer/client) What’s up? (too informal)

Good Morning (you don’t know what time they will check their mail)

If you are wondering how formal you should be, there are a couple of tricks you can use.

Firstly, if you are replying to an e-mail they sent you, just echo back their opener. If they write “Hi Harry,” you can start your response with, “Hi Mike,”

Secondly, if you have never written to them before, go for the default “Hello <name>,” as this is neither too formal nor informal.

Generally, you should always use a more formal opener in a work environment than you would with friends.

As for saying goodbye, there are numerous ways you can do this. Just make sure you give your name – which should appear on the second line after your close.

If you are in frequent communication with the receiver, your first name will probably do. If you don’t know them too well, or if this is your first communication, use your full name.

Good

Kind regards, Peter Thanks, Tony Jones

Bad

Thanks, Tony (put on separate lines) Yours eternally,

Jonathon (if you want to express your undying love for them, send them some flowers instead)

Almost all e-mail programs allow you to set up a signature, which will be added to the bottom of each e-mail you send. Many people fail to take advantage of this feature, and limit themselves to the standard company disclaimer.

Your signature should contain the following information:

alternative contact details (e.g. phone, address), in case they want to contact you in another way;

time when you check your messages (e.g. every weekday at 10am and 4pm), so they know when you are likely to pick up their message;

any important news (e.g. “I'll be out of the office between the 4th and 8th July. Please call Andy on xxxx if you need support during this time).

You can also use your standard closing lines, to save you having to write this out each time (e.g. Kind regards, Joan)

Remember to use formatting techniques, and make the text smaller than the main text of your e-mail.

Best wishes, John Smith

A-Team Vigilante Services Tel: 111-222-3333

Address: Suite 334, BA Studios, California, 90210 Web: www.theateam.ba

E-mail checked Mon-Thurs at 10am, 1pm and 3pm

News: Please note, I'll be moving office on 17th August. New details to follow.

Note: Before putting in place a new signature, you may want to check your company/organization rules on what you can/cannot say. Some are relatively strict.

7.Say what phrase would be appropriate in the following situations:

1)beginning an e-mail to an unknown person;

2)beginning an e-mail to your colleague and friend Henry;

3)ending an e-mail to a person you know well;

4)ending an e-mail to your new business partner.

8.Think what your signature can look like.

9.Read the texts and find out which of them contains the following information:

1)what should be avoided in e-mail messages;

2)what should be done to make e-mail messages intelligible;

3)how to use different formatting techniques.

I

There are several ways to format the text in e-mails that can dramatically improve them. Before considering formatting, it is important to recognize that some people (very few) only get e-mail in a basic format (known as plain text). This means that they don’t see any colours, bold text, italics, active hyperlinks or images. Most people can now receive “HTML” e-mail. This allows all sorts of formatting to be used. Some people abuse this, and put in icons, flashing text, photos and all sorts. This can just make messages look childish.

However, when use correctly, there are various formatting techniques that can help get your message across.

Bold should be used to highlight the key points of your message. Use the Under 10 Rule for bold (no more than 10% of your total text should be in bold, and no more than 10 words in a row). So, don’t put full paragraphs in bold.

Italics should be used to explain how to speak the text (which words to emphasize) and also for books, and names of things.

Avoid underlying text, because it gets confused with hyperlinks. Use larger text for headlines.

Use colour carefully and rarely – you should only use red and green. Red for things that are vitally important, warnings, or that something is wrong. Green for things that are okay, passed or within acceptable limits.

Many e-mail programs block images from automatically showing, so the receiver may not even see the message as you intended. If you want to include a photo or image, just attach it to the e-mail and say “see attached photo” in the text.

II

When writing an e-mail, it is very important to be as clear as possible. Remember that, when you send an e-mail, you don’t have all the body language and voice tone that helps people to understand what you mean. The chances of someone misunderstanding your requests or instructions are much higher.

There is a very simple way to be clearer in your writing. Just shorten the length of words, sentences and paragraphs.

Firstly, avoid using too many long words. The English language is constructed in a way that the more often we use a particular word, the shorter it tends to be. For example, words such as “the”, “a”, “in” and so on are very short, but words that are rarely used, like “misappropriation”, are very long.

Think about someone reading your e-mail that learned English as a second language. They are far more likely to know the shorter, more common, words.

So, try to replace longer words with shorter equivalents. For example, change the word “approximately” to “about”. You should aim for about 10-20% the words you use to be over 8 letters in length.

The length of sentences is also important. People tend to lose concentration the longer a sentence goes on. If you were reading a sentence out loud, the period sign is where you take a breath. The longer the sentence, the less you stop to breathe. So break them up if they go past 20 words.

Finally, keep paragraphs short – ideally containing 3 sentences per paragraph. This breaks up your text into manageable chunks.

In summary, the targets should be as follows:

No more than 15% of your words should be longer than 8 letters.

Aim for 10-20 words per sentences.

Aim for 2-4 sentences per paragraph.

PART III

MODERN

CLASSIFICATIONS

OF ROADS

READING

2. Read the following words and learn them by heart: to diverge – расходиться, отличаться, различаться

Global growth rates are diverging markedly. space – пространство

How much space is there on each disk?

easement – права прохода по чужой земле, практичность, удобство

The water authority has rights to obtain easements to run water mains across adjoining property.

to cater – поставлять, обеспечивать, обслуживать

This is the biggest event we’ve ever catered for. motorway – автострада, автомагистраль

Motorway is a very wide road for traveling fast over long distances especially between cities.

expressway – скоростная автострада со сквозным движением (как правило, платная)

An expressway is a divided highway for high-speed traffic with at least partial control of access.

arterial road – магистральная дорога

The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver between urban centres at the highest level of service possible.

trunk road – магистральная дорога, шоссе (наиболее современные из них являются автострадами)

Many trunk roads have segregated lanes in a dual carriageway, or are motorway standard.

local access road – дорога местного значения, обеспечивающая доступ к автостраде

the lowest.

collector road – трасса коллектора

A collector road or distributor road is a low to moderate-capacity road which serve to move traffic from local streets to arterial roads.

carriageway – проезжая часть дороги

A road with a median between traffic going in opposite directions is known as dual carriageway road.

road shoulder – обочина

A road shoulder is a reserved area by the verge of a road or motorway. emergency lane – аварийная полоса

Breakdown lane and emergency lane are alternative names of a shoulder. cul-de-sacs – тупик

A cul-de-sac (literally “bottom of bag”) is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road.

lay-by –придорожная площадка для стоянки автомобилей

The term lay-by is used in the United Kingdom and Ireland to describe a roadside parking or rest area for drivers.

interchange – перекрёсток с эстакадой; развязка

A complete interchange has enough ramps to provide access from any direction of any road in the junction to any direction of any other road in the junction.

2.Guess the meaning of the following words:

a)basing on their phonetic and graphic similarity with the Russian words: identifiable, historically, example, urban, efficient, to channel;

b)basing on the known English words:

serviceability, proximity, exception, U-Turns, underpass, trafficked.

3. Read and translate the following collocations:

distance of travel, level of traffic flow, desired speed of travel, clear guidelines, the cost of construction, all terrain vehicles, rows of shops, sharp turns (right angle turns), at the edge of the road, emergency vehicle access, line of sight, graded intersections.

4. Read the text and fill in the following table:

TYPES OF ROADS

A road is an identifiable route, way or path between places. Roads are typically smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel; though they need not be, and historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or maintenance.

The term was also commonly used to refer to roadsteads, waterways that lent themselves to use by shipping. Notable examples being Hampton Roads, in Virginia, the seaway Barry Roads in the Bristol Channel and Castle Roads, in Bermuda (also formerly in Virginia).

In urban areas roads may diverge through a city or village and be named as streets, serving a dual function as urban space easement and route. Economics and society depend heavily on efficient roads. In the European Union (EU) 44% of all goods are moved by trucks over roads and 85% of all persons are transported by cars, buses or coaches on roads.

Roads should be designed to cater for a defined function. This typically reflects the distance of travel, level of traffic flow and desired speed of travel. Road networks in most countries will therefore reflect the development of a hierarchy of roads, with motorways at the highest level and local access roads at the lowest. In practice a basic hierarchy will occur naturally through the more heavily trafficked roads being engineered to higher standards. But it is important that the hierarchy is established to clear guidelines linking design to function, throughout the network. This is particularly necessary where different functional levels or different geographical areas are managed by different road authorities.

A road system comprises a number of road classes – such as expressways, highways, trunk roads, arterial roads, collector roads, streets, lanes, cul-de-sacs. Such a hierarchical classification system allows traffic/transportation engineers and town planners to properly design roads. Each class (category) of road has certain design guidelines. These guidelines ensure safety, ease of maneuverability and therefore dictate the cost of construction.

A trail is a walking path. These are normally found in villages (linking one house to another) and hills and mountains. Campers walk on these to access the mountains. Unpaved road or tracks are dirt roads, non tar. It is suitable for bicycles, motorcycles, 4-wheels, all terrain vehicles and trucks (lorries).

The roads within a residential suburb are normally called residential streets, or simply streets. Normally streets allow two way traffic and are connected to other streets at each end. However, there are also streets that appear to be dead end. These are called cul-de-sac (an old French hunting term, translated literally as “bottom of the bag”). Its purpose is to reduce and limit access to people who have business to be there. It prevents thoroughfare thus reducing traffic and vehicle speed. Hence traffic noise is reduced, and safety increased. A similar situation exists in commercial centers (do not confuse with shopping complex). Commercial centers comprise rows of shops.