Critique

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COURTESY
CORRECTNESS
CONCISENESS
CLARITY
COHERENCE AND COHESION
CONCRETENESS
COMPLETENESS


Purpose of letter: To inform graduating students about online declaration of graduate modules for credit.

In my opinion, the letter was courteous and concise. The language used was clear and minimal words were being used to describe situations in a comprehend way. The writer also used numberings to indicate clearly the different important points that she wished to inform the reader. In addition, the information was assembled in a cohesive and coherence way which enhances the understanding of the reader. Useful links were also provided to ensure that students would be able to access the website efficiently.

However, the writer could make some changes to improve her letter slightly. Firstly, writer could have included the phrase “Dear Students” at the beginning of her letter to address the students. Secondly, she could have rephrased the following statement in the forth point “If you fail to file for ….fulfillment of the Undergraduate Degree” to make it sound more subtle. She could change it to “If you were to miss the declaration period, it will be assumed that you wish to use the Graduate Module(s) for fulfillment of the Undergraduate Degree” Thirdly, she could have signed off with “Regards, XXXX” at the end of the letter. And lastly she could have included and email address or a phone number that students could turn to for further enquires.

Edited 17/02/09

Conflicts between siblings

Characters: John and Peter

Scenario:
John’s dad had just bought a family car in the middle of last year. However, his brother Peter, uses it most of the time since his dad is driving a company van and none of the other family members have a driving license.

John and his dad are Liverpool fans while Peter is a Manchester United fan. Before buying the car, an agreement was made between the siblings and their father that they were both not allowed to decorate the car with either the clubs accessories. However a few months later, Manchester United logos were seen in the car. Neither John nor his dad said anything to Peter.

Recently, John got his license. John was supervised by his dad when he was driving the family around, while short driving trips were supervised by Peter.

Scene 1: (John and Peter were in the car alone.)

John was reversing to park the car when suddenly Peter yelled

“Hey step on the brake!"

Hearing the command, John quickly plunged onto the brake and looked shock.

“Why what’s wrong? What had happen?” asked John eagerly.
“Did you know that you actually hit a person while reversing just now?” said Peter.
“I did?” John looked blankly into Peter. He was stunned. John turned to look to the back of the car but he could only see a lady walking about 10 metres away and who seemed perfectly fine. Neither of them got out off the car to check if anyone was really being hit. Without questioning his brother, John just continued parking the car and they both headed home. Questions ran through John’s mind.

If I did hit someone, why didn’t Peter got off the car and check on the person? Why wasn’t anyone at the back of the car when I turned back? And if it was the lady whom I saw was being hit, why did she look so fine and how is she able to walk such a distance almost immediately after being hit?

Scene 2: (John and Peter had just finished having dinner outside with the whole family)

After the dinner Peter decided to meet up with some friends. So John actually volunteered to drive the family home.

“Pass me the keys. I feel like driving today” said John to Peter.
Ignoring his brother’s request, Peter passed the keys to his dad. John was puzzled with Peter’s action.
“Why can’t I drive?”
“Your driving is horrendous!” Peter told John straight to the face.
Although John felt really hurt at the moment he just took the keys from his dad and drove the family home. But John just could not understand why his brother was behaving cold towards him. After some thought, he realized that his brother’s attitude towards him had changed since he started driving the family car.

What should John do to resolve this matter?

Edited 07/02/09