Formal letter

[Greekgirl]

It's a letter of complaint for my CPE class.
Would you please correct my mistakes?

Task
You have recently been to an event organised by your local community which was attended by large numbers of people. You feel that the event was badly organised and potentially dangerous. Write a letter to the authorities describing the event and expressing your concern.

My letter...

Dear sir/madam,

I am writing to complain about the recent musical concert which was organized by our local community and which I consider to have been a major failure.

To begin with, I was in awe of how inconsiderately the organizers scheduled the concert. The whole town had been informed of the imminent snowstorm two weeks before the date of the event and yet nothing was done in order to postpone it. In the end, the concert was held under sever weather conditions.

As far as safety measures were concerned, they were at the very least inadequate. The producers of the show used laser beam spots so as to make the event more spectacular. However, these lasers caused serious eye damage to the vast majority of the audience. Moreover, the people standing on the front rows nearly suffocated during the smoke effects, five of them had to be hospitalized, and all of us got dry eyes.

To make matters worse, the absence of paramedic and rescue teams was no trivial matter. Especially considering the hazardous equipment used in the event, there should have been at least one rescue officer for every hundred people. The ones who got hurt and had to wait for the paramedics to take them to the hospital were lucky enough to survive the concert.

I cannot apprehend why this concert got out of control since it had received a fair amount of publicity and was considered to be the biggest city attraction of the year. I would like you to inform me of you reasons why this production had passed health inspection. At the very least, I would like for the councilors who were responsible for the organization of the event to not only answer to the authorities regarding their indifference over safety and rescue, but also pay the medical bills for all the people who were sublethally hurt and therefore had to be treated in a hospital.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Now that I go over it again, I think that maybe I didn't follow the instructions well, cos it said "potentially dangerous". If there were actual accidents, does that mean I'm off topic or not?

Thanks a million in advance

[Anglika]

Dear sir/madam,

I am writing to complain about the recent musical concert which was organized by our local community and which I consider to have been a major failure.

To begin with, I was in awe of how inconsiderately the organizers scheduled the concert. The whole town had been informed of the imminent snowstorm two weeks before the date of the event and yet nothing was done in order to postpone it [it is unclear if you mean the snowstorm or the event] . In the end, the concert was held under sever weather conditions.

As far as safety measures were concerned, they were at the very least inadequate. The producers of the show used laser beam spots so as to make the event more spectacular. However, these lasers caused serious eye damage to the vast majority of the audience [Dangerous statement without evidence to back it - moderate it to "many of...". Moreover, the people standing on the front rows nearly suffocated during the smoke effects; five of them had to be hospitalized, and all of us got dry eyes.

To make matters worse, the absence of paramedic and rescue teams was no trivial matter. Especially considering the hazardous equipment used in the event, there should have been at least one rescue officer for every hundred people. The ones who got hurt and had to wait for the paramedics to take them to the hospital were lucky enough [delete = not necessary] to survive the concert.

I cannot apprehend [comprehend] why this concert got out of control since it had received a fair amount of publicity and was considered to be the biggest city attraction of the year. I would like you to inform me of you reasons why this production had passed health inspection ["safety regulations/inspections"] . At the very least, I would like for the councilors who were responsible for the organization of the event not only to answer to the authorities regarding their indifference to safety and rescue, but also to pay the medical bills for all the people who were sublethally [not a word - badly hurt is good enough] hurt and therefore had to be treated in a hospital.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,


I am afraid that yes, you are rather off topic by suggesting that actual physical damage occurred. It's not bad otherwise, so try rewriting and moderating the effects.

[Greekgirl]

Originally Posted by Anglika

Dear sir/madam,

I am writing to complain about the recent musical concert which was organized by our local community and which I consider to have been a major failure.

To begin with, I was in awe of how inconsiderately the organizers scheduled the concert. The whole town had been informed of the imminent snowstorm two weeks before the date of the event and yet nothing was done in order to postpone it [it is unclear if you mean the snowstorm or the event] . In the end, the concert was held under sever weather conditions.

As far as safety measures were concerned, they were at the very least inadequate. The producers of the show used laser beam spots so as to make the event more spectacular. However, these lasers caused serious eye damage to the vast majority of the audience [Dangerous statement without evidence to back it - moderate it to "many of...". Moreover, the people standing on the front rows nearly suffocated during the smoke effects; five of them had to be hospitalized, and all of us got dry eyes.

To make matters worse, the absence of paramedic and rescue teams was no trivial matter. Especially considering the hazardous equipment used in the event, there should have been at least one rescue officer for every hundred people. The ones who got hurt and had to wait for the paramedics to take them to the hospital were lucky enough [delete = not necessary] to survive the concert.

I cannot apprehend [comprehend] why this concert got out of control since it had received a fair amount of publicity and was considered to be the biggest city attraction of the year. I would like you to inform me of you reasons why this production had passed health inspection ["safety regulations/inspections"] . At the very least, I would like for the councilors who were responsible for the organization of the event not only to answer to the authorities regarding their indifference to safety and rescue, but also to pay the medical bills for all the people who were sublethally [not a word - badly hurt is good enough] hurt and therefore had to be treated in a hospital.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,


I am afraid that yes, you are rather off topic by suggesting that actual physical damage occurred. It's not bad otherwise, so try rewriting and moderating the effects.

First of all, I feel like I cannot thank you enough for helping me.
3 questions about 3 remarks you've made.
1) I understand now why it's unclear if I talk about the event or the snowstorm. I meant the event. Should I just write "postpone the event"? Wouldn't that be redundant? Any other suggestions, please?
2) The underlined word "you" is a typo and sorry for not paying more attention when proofreading my letter. It's a bad habit I'm trying to kick. Should I write "your" or just "the"?
3) The second underlined word, "councilors", is it a bad choice or is it not a word either? Cos I doubled checked and the spelling is fine. By writing "councilors" I am referring to the elected councimen who run the community. Is there another word for them?


Again, thanks a million for your invaluable help.

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by Greekgirl

First of all, I feel like I cannot thank you enough for helping me. You're welcome

3 questions about 3 remarks you've made.
1) I understand now why it's unclear if I talk about the event or the snowstorm. I meant the event. Should I just write "postpone the event"? Wouldn't that be redundant? Any other suggestions, please? It might be better to split it into two sentences. The first sentence "The whole town had been informed two weeks before the event about an imminent snowstorm." Then "Would it not have been more sensible to cancel the concert when the storm came?".
2) The underlined word "you" is a typo and sorry for not paying more attention when proofreading my letter. It's a bad habit I'm trying to kick. Should I write "your" or just "the"? I think "the" would be better.
3) The second underlined word, "councilors", is it a bad choice or is it not a word either? Cos I doubled checked and the spelling is fine. By writing "councilors" I am referring to the elected councimen who run the community. Is there another word for them? Sorry - my proofreading antenna picked up the American spelling and automatically said "wrong". Your spelling is ok.


Again, thanks a million for your invaluable help.

.

[RonBee]

musical concert - concert
To begin with, I was in awe of how inconsiderately the organizers scheduled the concert. - The organizers were inconsiderate in the way that they scheduled the event.
nothing was done in order to postpone it - nothing was done to postpone it
were lucky enough to survive the concert - were lucky to survive the concert

~R

[Greekgirl]

Thank you very very much!