S TSE

Simon Tse
Customer Service Officer
Card Centre

Simon's letter is not as effective as it could be. It's actually quite difficult to identify his purpose. You may have had to guess.

Simon probably wanted to do two things:
--to ask Mr Roman to collect his credit card and
--to explain how the annual fee for credit cards is charged.

So, you need to identify your purpose for writing. Your readers need to know why you are writing to them. Therefore, you should state your purpose for writing very clearly at the beginning. You can do this by writing a sentence which begins with a set phrase followed by a verb. For example,

I’m writing to / I would like to…explain / request…

When you use this method to state your purpose, the verb you choose is very important. Why? Because it helps your reader understand why you are writing.

Here are some of the verbs you can use: announce, complain, confirm, explain, inform, notify, propose, request and suggest.