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Can You Fix This Error-Filled Email?

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Lynn Gaertner-Johnston Updated on

Below is a screenshot of the first half of an email invitation I received for a bill-signing event in Seattle. I understood the content and appreciated the invitation, but I couldn’t help spotting all the errors. How many do you recognize?

Feel free to edit the message and post your revision in the comments. So that you can copy and paste, I have included the text version of the message below the screenshot.

 

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Find_the_errors

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Text of the message:

Dear ,

Come celebrate with our coalition partners, volunteers, legislative champions, and Governor Inslee at the WA Climate Package Bill Signing Ceremony on Tuesday May 7th at 3pm in Seattle!

Governor Inslee will sign 100% Clean Electricity, Clean Buildings for WA, and many other climate related bills into law at the event.

RSVP to the bill signing ceremony today, you won’t want to miss this groundbreaking signing!

****


I’d add or change seven punctuation marks, in addition to fixing other errors. If you can’t find the errors, take my Punctuation for Professionals course. It’s an online, self-study program with quizzes that tell you what you know and practical lessons that make understanding easy. 

I look forward to your revisions.

Lynn

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By Lynn Gaertner-Johnston

Lynn Gaertner-Johnston has helped thousands of employees and managers improve their business writing skills and confidence through her company, Syntax Training. In her corporate training career of more than 20 years, she has worked with executives, engineers, scientists, sales staff, and many other professionals, helping them get their messages across with clarity and tact.

A gifted teacher, Lynn has led writing classes at more than 100 companies and organizations such as MasterCard, Microsoft, Boeing, Nintendo, REI, AARP, Ledcor, and Kaiser Permanente. Near her home in Seattle, Washington, she has taught managerial communications in the MBA programs of the University of Washington and UW Bothell. She has created a communications course, Business Writing That Builds Relationships, and provides the curriculum at no cost to college instructors.

A recognized expert in business writing etiquette, Lynn has been quoted in "The Wall Street Journal," "The Atlantic," "Vanity Fair," and other media.

Lynn sharpened her business writing skills at the University of Notre Dame, where she earned a master's degree in communication, and at Bradley University, with a bachelor's degree in English.

6 comments on “Can You Fix This Error-Filled Email?”

  • Hi, Lynn,

    Below are my edits. (If you went to this celebration, I hope you had fun!)

    ———-START
    Dear Name:

    Come celebrate with our coalition partners, volunteers, legislative champions, and Governor Inslee at the Washington Climate Package bill-signing ceremony on Tuesday, May 7, at 3 p.m. in Seattle!

    Governor Inslee will sign 100% Clean Electricity, Clean Buildings for Washington, and many other climate-related bills into law at the event.

    RSVP for the bill-signing ceremony today. You won’t want to miss this groundbreaking signing!
    ———-END

    If I were a marketer, I’d keep the “friendly” comma after Dear So-and-so.” In addition, I would include information on where the ceremony is in Seattle.

    Thank you for challenging us with these exercises. I’ll look forward to seeing everyone’s revisions!

    Jane

    Reply

  • Dear,

    Come ! celebrate with our coalition partners, volunteers, legislative champions and the Governor Inslee at the WA Climate Package Bill Signing Ceremony on Tuesday, May 7th at 3pm in Seattle.

    Governor Inslee will sign 100% Clean Electricity, Clean Buildings for WA and many other climate related bills into law at the event.

    RSVP to the bill signing ceremony today, you won’t want to miss this groundbreaking signing!

    Reply

  • Dear ,

    Come celebrate with our coalition partners, volunteers, legislative champions, and Governor Jay Inslee at the WA Climate Package Bill-Signing Ceremony on Tuesday, May 7 at 3:00 p.m. in Seattle.

    Governor Inslee will sign 100% Clean Electricity, Clean Buildings for WA, and many other climate-related bills into law at the event.

    RSVP to the bill-signing ceremony today–you won’t want to miss this groundbreaking event!

    Reply

  • Dear ,

    Come, celebrate with our coalition partners, volunteers, legislative champions, and Governor Inslee at the WA Climate Package Bill-Signing Ceremony at 3pm on Tuesday, May 7th in Seattle!
    Governor Inslee will sign 100% Clean Electricity, Clean Buildings for WA, and many other climate-related bills into law at the event.

    RSVP to the bill-signing ceremony today, so that you won’t want to miss this groundbreaking signing!

    Reply

  • Dear ,

    Come celebrate the Washington Climate Package Bill signing ceremony with Governor Inslee, our coalition partners, volunteers and legislative champions on Tuesday, May 7th at 3:00 p.m. in Seattle!

    Governor Inslee will sign climate related bills into law during the event including the 100% Clean Electricity bill and the Clean Buildings for Washington bill.

    RSVP to the signing ceremony today. You won’t want to miss it!

    Reply

  • Hello Jane, Senna, Christie, Kasumi, and L.G.,

    Thank you for participating in this challenge. Wasn’t it surprising that a short portion of the invitation included so many errors?

    Jane was the first to respond and corrected all the errors. Great work, Jane! I will write about each correction, and you can use my explanation and compare your version with Jane’s.

    1. A name needs to follow the greeting “Dear.” Using just “Dear” followed by a comma shows that the writer’s database is incomplete. If you send mass emails like this one, find out how to handle recipients whose first names you do not have.

    2. Jane, I too would keep the friendly comma after the greeting.

    3. Although the abbreviation “WA” is not incorrect, it is a good idea to spell it out as “Washington.” The abbreviation is acceptable in headlines and subject lines as long as the spelled-out version follows soon after.

    4. “Bill signing” is a compound adjective when it comes before a noun such as “ceremony.” It needs to be hyphenated: “bill-signing ceremony.”

    5. Unless “bill-signing ceremony” is the proper name of the event, the words should be lower case rather than capitalized. Indeed, they are lower case later in the message.

    6. The date should be rendered this way: Tuesday, May 7

    Whenever you use a day of the week and date in a sentence, surround the date with commas (unless the sentence structure requires a period or a semicolon).

    7. Virtually all style manuals dictate the use of cardinal numbers in dates. That means May 7 is correct–not May 7th. “The New Yorker” magazine uses ordinal numbers such as 7th for dates, but other publications do not.

    8. The time should be rendered this way: 3 p.m. There should be a space between the number and p.m. Also, p.m. requires periods. I will empathize with you if you think the periods are no longer necessary in our fast-paced world of communication. But all style manuals that I know of still recommend them.

    9. The name of one of the acts is “Clean Buildings for Washington”–not “Clean Buildings for WA.” The state name should be spelled out.

    10. “Climate related” is a compound adjective before the word “bills.” It requires a hyphen: climate-related.

    11. “RSVP for” makes more sense than “RSVP to.” One can RSVP FOR an event or TO an invitation, but not to an event.

    12. Again, “bill-signing ceremony” needs that hyphen.

    13. The final sentence is a run-on–that is, it is two sentences fused without a conjunction. It makes sense to separate them like this:
    RSVP for the bill-signing ceremony today. You won’t want to miss this groundbreaking signing!

    It is also fine to use a dash between the two sentences, as Christie did, or to insert a conjunction between them, as Kasumi did.

    L.G., you made some interesting edits to the message. I was focused on correcting it, but your conciseness make sense.

    Please let me know, everyone, if I missed a point you were wondering about.

    Thanks again for participating!

    Lynn

    Reply

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