[TOOLS WHIRRING]
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Email Tune-Up,
the video podcast to help you improve your business writing.
PROFESSOR: Now, here, we have a short email
from Jenny, who is responsible for her company's IT services.
She's written this email to give her colleagues some bad news.
The office email server will be down later today
because of some technical problems.
When a server goes down, it means
that it has been taken offline or down for maintenance
or because of a problem.
Before we look at the mechanics, style, and tone of this message,
let's talk a little bit about the best way
to deliver bad news in an email.
When you're writing to someone outside your company,
it's a good idea to use an indirect style,
although you should also make sure your reader understands
and accepts the bad news.
But in this case, Jenny is writing to her own colleagues.
For this internal bad news message,
it's best to use a more direct style
since the company wants to deal with problems efficiently.
At the same time, she needs to be polite
and to show understanding for her colleagues
receiving the bad news.
Regardless of which method you use,
you should always try to buffer or sandwich
bad news with some neutral material before and after.
All right, let's start with the mechanics of this email.
As you can see, we have a subject line--
Server Restart Inform.
Let's first correct the grammar in this line.
We can't use inform as a noun in this way.
So we'd better change it to something like "notice."
And since we don't have an opening salutation,
we can add something neutral and professional,
like "Dear Colleagues."
Now, when we look at the body of the email,
the first thing we notice is that the entire message
is just one sentence long.
And it's a run-on sentence.
That is, it's really several separate sentences
that have been incorrectly strung together with commas.
Let's start by replacing all these commas with periods
so that the sentences stand on their own.
And we'll need to capitalize the first word
in each of these new sentences.
Now that we've broken the sentences apart,
let's go through them one by one and make sure
the grammar is correct.
In the first sentence, Jenny writes that the company will
have to restart the server from 17:15 PM to 18:00 PM today.
Since Jenny is using 24-hour time here,
she doesn't need PM after 17:15 or 18:00.
This sentence also has a subordinate clause--
"because of the backup tape equipment has some problems."
Here, we need to change "because of" to "because."
Remember that "because of" is always followed by a noun
or a noun phrase.
But what we have here is a complete sentence,
"the backup tape equipment has some problems,"
which takes "because" by itself.
We can also see that this last sentence,
"Any questions please call 588," is actually a sentence fragment.
We'd better turn it into a complete sentence by making
the first part into a clause, "If you have any questions,"
and then setting it off with a comma.
And finally, we should think about structuring the email
into separate paragraphs.
I think the best way to do this is to begin a new paragraph with
"Sorry for the inconvenience."
This gives us two paragraphs with separate ideas, one
that explains what's happening and one
that apologizes to Jenny's readers
and gives them an opportunity to ask for more information.
Now, let's move on to the style of this email.
When you're writing a message to deliver bad news,
one good strategy is to buffer the news, that is,
to put some neutral material at the beginning and the end
of the email and also at the beginning and end
of each paragraph containing bad news.
This makes the delivery less abrupt
and helps avoid giving a negative impression
to the reader.
As you can see, Jenny hasn't followed this rule.
She goes straight to the bad news.
We will restart our mail server.
And only afterwards does she explain the reason for the news.
Let's rearrange this paragraph to put the explanation first
so the readers understand why they are being inconvenienced.
We can begin by saying something like,
"We have discovered that the backup tape equipment
for our mail server has some problems."
And then cut out the second clause of the original sentence.
This puts the bad news in the second sentence
of the paragraph.
But we should probably add a clause
that explains the connection between the equipment
problem and the server restart.
Let's start by saying, "For this reason, we will restart."
And we can just say, "the server"
in this sentence since we've identified the system already.
The last sentence in this paragraph
gives the reader some additional bad news.
Jenny is telling them that the company
may lose its email connection for a long time this afternoon.
But since we know that the repairs should be finished
by 18:00, we can rephrase this news in a positive way.
Where Jenny writes "from 17:15 to 18:00," let's say,
"beginning at 17:15 today" and end the second sentence there.
This gives us the chance to end the paragraph
on a positive note.
Instead of saying, "We expect to restart the server many times,"
the final sentence can say, "We expect the server to be
available again after 18:00."
When an email has to deliver bad news,
it's also helpful to emphasize how
readers can benefit by cooperating
or by accepting the situation.
So let's have Jenny add a new sentence
in a separate paragraph, explaining
why this temporary interruption of service
will make things easier for her colleagues in the long run.
She can say, "These repairs to the server will make
your Internet and email connections more reliable
in the future."
In the next paragraph, Jenny is right to use
apologetic phrasing, since this ends the email
in a less negative way.
But we should make some changes to her language
so it sounds less abrupt.
A sentence beginning with "Sorry" sounds very informal,
which probably isn't a good idea if she wants to show sympathy
for her colleagues.
Let's change it to "We apologize for the inconvenience."
And we don't really need this final "to you."
And we can change "call 588" to "call me on extension 588,"
again, making the sentence less abrupt and more informative
and emphasizing that Jenny is personally involved in solving
this problem.
And finally, let's review the email for tone.
The first and second paragraphs have a neutral tone,
which is appropriate for delivering
bad news in an internal memo.
But in the third paragraph, we should add some language
to make Jenny's apology sound more sincere
by expressing concern for the needs of her colleagues.
Jenny wants to make her readers feel
welcome to ask for more information about the server
problem.
So let's begin by adding "or concerns"
to this final sentence.
So it becomes "questions or concerns."
And we can change "please call" to "please feel free to call,"
again, to create a more welcoming tone.
Finally, we should add a closing sentence
to show appreciation for the reader's problems
and their willingness to cooperate in solving them.
Let's write something like "Thank you for your patience
and understanding."
This sentence, "We apologize for the inconvenience,"
may not really be necessary.
Some of you may feel it makes the email too apologetic.
So I think we can let our listeners decide for themselves.
Does Jenny need this apology or not?
Now, let's take one final look at this email.
Jenny has taken a problem that might cause a lot of annoyance
to her readers, and she's explained it
in a way that's direct, professional, and sympathetic.
She's making the best of a bad situation, which
is a very important skill in any business setting.
So let's hit the Send button and get this message out
to Jenny's colleagues.