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Writing Clinic #2: Dear Co-Owners

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It is time for another edition of the Writing Clinic. This week we have an article that one of our readers wrote for his company’s annual report. If you want to submit a piece for the writing clinic, please email it to [email protected].

Before

Dear Co-owners

Once again, it is that time of the year when the entire FEI Family meets over a session of important facts and figures that unveil support, faith, and prayer, besides growth charts.

I look forward to the AGM every year. It gives me a feeling of close interaction with the five sets of my family – my blood family (my mother, daughter and son), my employees, my shareholders, my vendors and my customers.

To transform this meeting into a small celebration, I have chosen the only festival I commemorate, that is The Founder’s Day, birthday of our co-founder and my life partner Shailaja. I strongly believe, her presence in spirit will continue to steer our organization to greater heights. On my part, I am now more determined than ever to realize the FEI of her dreams.

At FEI, we have always been trying to do things differently – taking calculated risks to reach or experience a whiff of freshness at the pinnacle. It is true that disturbances in the global economy have slowed down our expansion plans, but let me reassure you that we will go ahead with our growth strategies at the most opportune moment.

The paucity of key personnel continues to worry us. Nevertheless, your company is in an advanced stage of creating a dedicated Logistics institute to receive a steady supply of the right people – trained our way, to our requirements and based on our corporate philosophy of ‘Aiming Higher.’

Thanks to FEI Duniya, Teri Yaad Mein, ICE Awards and the activities of Shailaja Nair Foundation, FEI has established a very special place in the industry. We will continue to work hard and smart to steer your company along the gradient of growth.

Before I conclude, allow me to place on record, my gratitude to all our Directors, Management, Group Employees, Customers, Vendors, Worldwide Partners, Bankers, Government Bodies, Auditors, Company Secretary, Well-wishers, and as much importantly, the shareholders of FEI Cargo Limited.

Thank you for placing your strong faith in me and my team.

With warm regards,

Nishith

After

Dear Co-owners:

It’s that time of the year again when the entire FEI family meets over a session of important facts, figures and the occasional growth charts. It’s that time to share support, faith and prayer.

I eagerly look forward to the AGM every year. It gives me a feeling of close interaction with my five families: blood family, employees, shareholders, vendors and customers.

To transform this meeting into a small celebration, I have chosen to coincide the meeting with the only festival I commemorate – The Founder’s Day. This day marks the birthday of our co-founder and my life partner, Shailaja.  I strongly believe that her presence, in spirit, will continue to steer our organization to unprecedented heights. For my part, I am now more determined than ever to realize the FEI of her dreams.

At FEI, we have always tried to do things differently. We have taken calculated risks to experience and maintain a fresh culture that is laser-focused on being the best. While fluctuations in the global economy have slowed our expansion plans, let me reassure you that we will march forward at the most opportune moment.

The lack of key personnel continues to worry us. Nevertheless, we are in an advanced stage of creating a dedicated logistics institute to introduce a steady stream of qualified people. These hires will be expertly trained to our requirements and deeply grounded in our corporate philosophy of “Aiming Higher.”
Thanks to FEI Duniya, Teri Yaad Mein, ICE Awards and the activities of Shailaja Nair Foundation, FEI has established a unique place in the industry.  We will continue to work hard and efficient to steer your company along the trajectory of growth.

Before I conclude, I’d like to express my gratitude to our directors, management teams, group employees, customers, vendors, worldwide partners, bankers, government bodies, auditors, the company secretary, well-wishers and, equally important, the shareholders of FEI Cargo Limited.

My team and I thank you for placing your unwavering faith in us.

With warm regards,

Nishith

Comments

First of all many sentences were broken down in two or more, with periods added to separate the thoughts more clearly. You can see this in the first, fourth and last paragraphs.

Secondly, some sentences and paragraphs were edited for brevity. Here is one example:

“I look forward to the AGM every year. It gives me a feeling of close interaction with the five sets of my family – my blood family (my mother, daughter and son), my employees, my shareholders, my vendors and my customers.”

After the editing this paragraph looked like this:

“I eagerly look forward to the AGM every year. It gives me a feeling of close interaction with my five families: blood family, employees, shareholders, vendors and customers.”

Finally, the writing of some words was corrected. For example, “to our Directors, Management, Group Employees, Customers, Vendors…” became “to our directors, management teams, group employees, customers…” (i.e., the initial capital letters were removed).

The Writing Clinic column is a collaboration between our blog and Gramlee.com, a company that provides grammar checks, proofreading and copy editing services.

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17 thoughts on “Writing Clinic #2: Dear Co-Owners”

  1. Missing Word: Before I conclude, I’d like to ***express*** my gratitude to our directors…

    Also, I wonder why “your” was left in this sentence: “We will continue to work hard and efficient to steer your company along the trajectory of growth”. I think it is to personalize the company and foster ownership in the company, but I would have chosen “our”.

  2. In all honesty, I think it still needs more work:

    “the occasional growth charts” shoould be either “the occasional growth chart” or “occasional growth charts”?

    You say, “I have chosen to coincide the meeting…” but I don’t think you can use “conicide that way. It certainly reads awkwardly, at least to British eyes.

    I think a “culture that is laser-focused” is a rather odd metaphor as is “steer your company along the trajectory of growth” (if it’s on a trajectory, it shouldn’t need steering, so maybe use another word).

    There is a typo near the end, “We will continue to work hard and efficient”.

    There is a missing word in the phrase, “I’d like to my gratitude”.

    I realise we all make mistakes, and that some things are a matter of stylistic (and maybe regional) preference, but if you are publicly demonstrating how to improve other people’s work, I think you need to take a little more care.

  3. And just to prove my point, I’ve included a couple of typos of my own for you to correct. Deliberate, of course. 😉

  4. I like the idea of the Writer’s Clinic. The “before and after” approach can help us all be more critical (in an analytical sense) of our own writing.

    The “after” memo was greatly improved. However, there are still a few errors that I noticed:

    – We will continue to work hard and efficient (s/b efficiently) to steer your (“our” would be better, I think) company along the trajectory of growth.

    – Before I conclude, I’d like to (word left out: express?) my gratitude to our directors

    It is almost impossible for one person to catch every error. That’s why our company has several editors and proofers. It takes a team to produce good writing and even a small company needs someone to give documents a “second look.”

  5. As an aspiring editor, I cringe when others edit the work of an editor. Not because I think editors always know best, but because they missed something, that’s embarrassing, and that could well be me in the future.

    However, in the end, the errors are truly the editor’s fault.

    Did Gramlee edit the above?

  6. Cecily: “Coincide this meeting” sounds funny because “coincide” is not a transitive verb. It is not used with an object, such as “this meeting.”

    SM, James: I agree. “Steer OUR company” seems like a better choice when writing to co-owners. As co-owners, the company belongs to the person writing and to the reader, which makes “our” appropriate. Also, “will continue to steer our organization” needs to match “work hard and efficient [sic] to steer your company.” It can’t be both “your” and “our” company.

    This was an interesting post, particularly because the original text seemed, at first glance, to be a pretty decent first draft.

  7. I really liked this section. I think this would be a very good source or medium for people, like me, who are keen on bettering their writing skills. But just one suggestion, I would love to see the edited versions to be error free.

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