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Since this is the first assignment, one of the challenges is that I am not sure what the expectations are initially. Fortunately, Professor Peter Goldsworthy clarified about the email assignment through the announcements and in the tutorial. The requirement is to write the email to my TA as if I am in a business situation. Although there seems to be a lot of flexibility for this assignment, it turns out to be a challenge for me. Since I am inexperience in writing business messages, I have a hard time "creating" a business situation that is suitable for this assignment. In my opinion, reading chapter 4 of the textbook prior to this assignment is essential because it provides an overview of planning business messages. It is very helpful since some of the things it mentions are important, but many people often overlook them. One of the things that the textbook point out is using the journalistic approach to test the thoroughness of the message, and this leads to another challenge that I face for this assignment. To communicate effectively for this email assignment, the content needs to be specific, which may increases the length of my email. So careful planning is necessary in order to include sufficient detail but not too much so that the audience will be information overload. Finally, I need to be careful not to use slang, short forms, and symbols when I write my email. I have a bad habit of putting " =P " and " =) " at the end of sentences in emails but I think it is inappropriate for this assignment. The tone and the level of formality are also important for this assignment. I tend to write in a casual and less formal tone for emails, so I should keep in mind that this is a business message email. Furthermore, editing and proofreading is crucial to avoid punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and spelling mistakes because these are things that are often overlooked when writing emails.
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