Dear All,
As most of you have suggested, the continual assessment 1 will be held on Feb. 20th (Friday), from 4.10-4.45 PM. The topic to be tested will be reciprocating compressor, especially two stage reciprocating compressor.
Yesterday, some of you also proposed a very good question, because of the slip effect, less power is required to deliver the same amount of fluid, it seems better for us to design a greater slip effect. Of course, the answer is not so simple. According to the equation 1.2, we can see, a less power means a lower compression ratio, for the extreme case, no power means no pressure rise. Evidently, it is not we hope to see. Sorry, I did not thought about it.
Regads!
XXXXX
This is an e-mail I received from a lecturer in NUS. He is a visiting professor and I must say he is a very good one in his field of study. His correspondence with us was about some technical aspects discussed in the tutorials and I believe that it has some shortcomings in his written communication skills.
First of all, he is not consistent with his tenses. He started to use the past tense and then shifts to the present tense. A flagrant mistake that he makes is ‘I did not thought’, this shows carelessness on his part. This could be the result of time factor as he was in a rush to send the mail and did not review it.
Next is the vocabulary issue, the word ‘Regards’ is written as ‘Regads’. This is an unacceptable mistake to make as it shows poor vocabulary skills and gives a bad impression for anyone reading this mail. Furthermore, quoting his phrase, ‘proposed a very good question’, I personally think that the verb ‘proposed’ is not the correct one in this context. Maybe he could simply put ‘asked’, as ‘proposed’ is used for ideas rather than questions.
In addition to this, his punctuations have some problems. Normally after the salutation close, we use either a comma or no punctuation but definitely not an exclamation mark. In his second paragraph, the first sentence is too long. He should have reduced it concisely and explained the technical aspects clearly.
UCS1001 S21 Tri1 2024-25
3 weeks ago
Posts
Yours is a fairly appropriate analysis, Yuvraj. There is a the verb problem that you point out. However, what is most obvious to me are the run on sentences, where he should have used a full stop to separate independent ideas: "Yesterday, some of you also proposed a very good question, because of the slip effect, less power is required to deliver the same amount of fluid, it seems better for us to design a greater slip effect."
ReplyDeleteOn the word "regards," my guess is that this is a typo. He's obviously rushing his mail (as I do at times). I'd forgive him.
Thanks!
Yo Yuvraj,
ReplyDeleteYou had the same experience as me of being on the receiving end of a bad email from a (good) professor. Instead of just commenting on the faults of the professor, why don't you write a version that is more appropriate? That would complement the remarks you made of the email.
I also noticed this professor does not like to capitalise some terms, making the email look like leet speak. It would be easier on the eye if words like "Continual Assessment" was capitalised. Perhaps, this lack of capitalisation and the ! after Regads was to relate more to the younger generation (us!).
All in all, not a bad post.
Hey Annie, thanks for the comments. Below is a version that I find to be more appropriate...
ReplyDeleteDear all,
As most of you have suggested, our Continual Assessment 1 will be held on Friday 20th February from 4.10-4.45 PM. The topic to be tested will be reciprocating compressor, especially two stage reciprocating compressor.
Yesterday, some of you asked a very good question. Due to the slip effect, less power is required to deliver the same amount of fluid. Therefore it seems better for us to design for a greater slip effect. However, this method is not so simple. According to the equation 1.2, we can see that a less power would mean a lower compression ratio for the extreme case. Thus, if there is no power, there would be no rise in pressure.
As we can see, this is not the result that we want to get. Sorry, I did not think about it.
Regards,
XXXXX
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey Yuvraj!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I guess you all have pointed out most of the areas for improvement. Nevertheless, I just want to bring out a few points which I hope are valid!
In the first paragraph where he informed the students about the CA, one of the details that MAY be missing is the VENUE of the test.
As for the second paragraph, I feel that the visiting Professor could have been clearer when he tries to explain the concepts to the question in the email. I am not sure if everyone in the class knows what was the "good question proposed by some of you" hence I feel that the second paragraph can be further divided into two paragraphs. In addition, I find his apologies at the end to be a little weird.
Here is my attempt:
Dear all,
As most of you have suggested, our Continual Assessment 1 will be held on Friday 20th February from 4.10-4.45 PM, at (VENUE). The topic to be tested will be reciprocating compressor, especially two stage reciprocating compressor.
(I am sorry I may have missed out something and would like to thank those who have brought the issue to my attention.) Yesterday, some of you asked a very good question. (STATE WHAT WAS THE QUESTION BEING ASKED)
Due to the slip effect, less power is required to deliver the same amount of fluid. Therefore it seems better for us to design for a greater slip effect. However, this method is not so simple. According to the equation 1.2, we can see that a less power would mean a lower compression ratio for the extreme case. Thus, if there is no power, there would be no rise in pressure and this is not the result that we would want to get.
Regards,
XXXXX
Dear Yuraj,
ReplyDeleteI feel that you have done a great job editing the errors-ridden email that your professor sent out. Another suggestion to improve this piece of writing is probably to bold important information such as the time of the test and the topic to be tested. Besides, your professor could have separated out this email into two separate emails: One states about the information about the test while the other states about the question that was asked during lecture. This would present the message in a clear and concise manner.
Thanks ZiQi and Terry for your valuable comments.
ReplyDeleteZiQi - The venue was not very necessary since it was a small quiz held in the tuitorial room itself. However, in modules that a large number of students and the mid-semester exams are conducted in MPSH for example, the lecturer should put the venue.
Terry - The idea to bold the important information is very good.