Summary Transactional Writing: English

TRANSACTIONAL WRITING
Important Aspects
- Purpose/ intention
o Why are you writing?
- Audience
o For whom ae you writing?
o Who will be reading?
- Context
o What is the situation?
- Content
o What are you writing about?
o Is it relevant?
- Register
o Is the piece of writing formal/ informal?
o Determined by audience and purpose
- Format
o Is your piece of writing correctly laid out?
- Style
o Have you used appropriate
 Diction
 Sentence structure
 Tone
o Determined audience and purpose
- Language
o Is your spelling and grammar correct

Email
Needed
- Recipient’s address
o
- CC
o Addresses of the recipients whose attention is called to the email
 Not expected to do anything
 Supervisor
- Subject
o Summary of the email
o Full sentence is not required
- Message
o Introduction
 Briefly state what it is you are writing about
o Body
 Develop points
 Use a separate paragraph for each point
o Conclusion
 Short sentence to tie up email
o Sign off

NB
- The sender’s address reflects automatically when the email is received
- The sender may choose to provide other contact details at the endAlways be polite
o Signature
Other
- Register and tone
o Differ depending on
 relationship between sender and receiver
 subject/ content of email
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, FORMAT

TO:
CC: ;
SUBJECT: Outstanding reports
MESSAGE
Dear All NO COMMA

You are reminded to submit all the outstanding reports by the set date. 20 April 2019. A mid-
erm report template will be sent to you hereafter to facilitate uniformity. You are advised to
consult Mr Sandburg if you encounter any problem with the template.

Kind Regards NO COMMA
Solumzi Yam

Business/ formal letter

Examples
- application letter
- letter of complaint
- letter requesting sponsorship
- letter of dismissal
- formal letter of apology

Remember
- formal register
- indicate whether you are writing in a personal capacity or on behalf of an
organisation/ group
- Indicate if your letter is a follow up to any previous correspondence
- Provide specifics where people
o Dates
o Names
o Times
o Locations
- Language must be simple and direct
o Be concise
 Without omitting any necessary information
- Do not get emotional/ personal
- Do not make grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes
- Indicate whether you would like a response or any action to be taken
- If writing an application letter
o Indicate availability for interviews
- Refer to any accompanying documentation

NB
- The word count for letters includes only content
o Introduction
o Body
o Conclusion




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