E-mail or F(ail)-mail?

This year, I was selected by (insert random name) School to participate in an annual scientific congress organized by (insert another random name) University. This blog post will explore the correspondences I’ve had with the secretariat. As this congress is a science and engineering related one, and that readers of this blog are most likely to come from these two faculties, I shall not comment further on the name or nature of this congress.

E-mail #1: Congress Acceptance E-mail 

(Dated 13 November 2008)

Dear Students,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the 14th NUROP Congress. Congratulations!

More details on the Congress will be sent to you by email later once we receive them from the Faculty of Engineering who is the main organizer of the NUROP Congress in 2009. Please check your emails regularly for more details and the things that we will need you to prepare such as the submission of your poster.

Thank you.

Regards,

Ong Lili 

The E-mail was a good news message that achieved most of the 7Cs in effective communication, and also the strategies in writing good news messages. The correspondent informed me of the good news in the opening paragraph, and ended it by commenting on the further actions needed to be done. Although there was not much concreteness and completeness in terms of congress details, the correspondent justified the lack of information by requesting me to check for subsequent E-mails.

About one and a half months later, I received another good news message from another correspondent. 

E-mail #2: Another Good News Message? 

(Dated 29 December 2008)

Dear Students,

Thank you for participating in the 14th NUROP Congress on 18 Feb 2009 as either oral or poster presenters. To prepare yourselves for the event, please refer to the attached document.

More information will be sent to you in due course, do check your e-mails regularly.

Thank you.

Regards,

Eunice

This E-mail sounded like a follow-up of E-mail #1, since more information has been provided in the “attached document”, and the awareness that there were two types of presenters (oral or poster).

To analyze E-mail #2 further according to the 7Cs in writing and principles of business correspondence, the poster presenter section of the attached document (or memorandum) is provided here. Note that I have not been informed about what type of presentation I would be doing.

Attached Document/Memorandum: Guidelines for Poster Presenters

14th NUROP Congress 2009 on 18 February 2009

GUIDELINES FOR POSTER PRESENTERS

Please get your supervisor’s approval before printing the posters.

POSTER SESSION

1)      The poster session will be held at the foyer.

2)      ALL posters must be of size A1 in portrait format. The poster must include the NUS logo, and should be pasted onto an A1-size poster board backing.  Soft copies of the poster (in ppt format) to be submitted to Ms Ratna (engrsba@nus.edu.sg) by 19 January 2009.

3)     The project title, name of student, name of supervisor(s) and school/department must be printed on the poster.

4)     Poster presenters are expected to be present during the poster session at their posters and be prepared for informal discussion with guests, visitors and fellow participants.

5)     Preparing a poster will take much of your time. There are always things that may go wrong, so do not wait until the last minute to do even the minor task. Back up your files, save it to a disk and allow for contingencies.

6)     Your faculty/department may have the printing facilities for printing A1-size posters.  You may like to approach them for assistance.

7)     ATTIRE FOR POSTER PRESENTERS: Long-sleeve shirt and pants for all males (no jeans are allowed); blouse and skirt for all females.

Generally, the attached document managed to achieve most of the 7Cs in effective communication. The document was courteous as it adopted the “You” attitude, and used gender-neutral terminologies such as “Posters presenters are expected…” It was also correct in terms of language, formality, grammar, punctuation and spelling. It fitted the concise category, writing in point format to avoid wordy expressions and redundancies. In addition, the instructions were clear, in order and have a sequential relationship pattern. Lastly, it was also coherent and cohesive.

However, there were some problems with the concreteness and completeness. Specific information such as type of presentation, time of report, time of presentation etc. was not included in the document. In the end, I had to probe the correspondent further to find out more information about the congress.

Misunderstandings were present in the document, but only to be found out in subsequent correspondences. In Point (2), it was stated that soft copies of the poster must be submitted to the secretariat by 19 January 2009, while in Point (6), it was stated that students may approach their respective faculties or departments to obtain contacts or assistance in printing facilities. Piecing these two points together, it can be assumed that I am supposed to submit the soft copy of my poster to the secretariat, but source for printing facilities on my own. The subsequent E-mail got me all confused!

 

E-mail #3: To Print or not to Print? (Dated 9 January 2009)

Dear Poster boys and gals,

A gentle reminder… I hope your posters are work-in-progress.  Plse work closely with your respective supervisors.  You have about 10 more days to send it to Ms Ratna for printing.

Regards,

Eunice

It turned out that I didn't have to print the poster on my own. If that was the case, why put Point (6) in the attached document? Although it managed to be concise by writing in point format, there were redundant statements within each point as well!

The above miscommunication was just the tip of the iceberg. There were other issues whereby the correspondent failed to achieve the 7Cs in effective communication. Firstly, although the E-mails were courteous in adopting the “You” attitude and using gender-neutral terminologies, the correspondent failed to reply in a timely response. The correspondent tended to reply a few days later, and most of the time leaving me more confused. There was also a rehearsal date planned one week before the congress, to which I couldn’t attend. I made numerous attempts to contact the secretariat for advice, albeit no responses. In the end, a circulation was sent out to all presenters a few days before the rehearsal, informing us of the cancellation.

I was very enthusiastic and elated for being accepted to present at the congress. However, the correspondences experienced so far has made me lose motivation and interest. The obvious lack of planning, as can be seen in the late E-mail replies and last minute cancellation of rehearsals, will only show that there will be more hiccups during the day of the congress itself. 

Author's note: I'll be presenting a paper on Consumption of Complementary and Alternative Medicines among Ambulatory Breast Cancer Patients in Singapore this 18th February! Do drop by  =D