Blog 2.3 - Politeness is key (Nurhanis Grade 12)

The topic for this week's lesson was "How to write emails in a more polite way". Personally for me, I think I'm a polite person but the real challenge is to see if I can actually channel that politeness into my writing which I found quite difficult. Our main situation of the whole email is to ask for a refund due to a defective product. I definitely learned a lot on how to write an email to the person in charge in a more polite manner. Since I've never actually been in a situation like that, it's hard for me to establish the relationship between me and the seller. 

The first important thing is to start the email with a greeting. It shouldn't just be a greeting because the greeting is what determines if the person will actually read it or become uninterested in further reading the email. It should be polite enough that the other party understands what the email is about.

I also learnt that an email in this situation should be clear and concise. Basically the message is explained in a straightforward manner. Not everyone has the time to carefully read a long email. A direct to the point email would save more time and benefit both parties because it prevents confusion in understanding the email.

Last but not least, it might be deemed as unimportant, but the usage of thank you deeply affect how the other party will view you. The whole email might be conveying a negative tone but the simple phrase "thank you" might change the whole tone of the text. However, we should also be mindful in the placing of the phrase 'thank you" because there could be different interpretation of the intonation of the phrase in a given sentence.

I feel like this lesson will benefit me in the future when I start to purchase items by my own. Nevertheless, it was a very concise and productive lesson.