unit 7: YOU CAN'T TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS
Section outline
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Relative clauses:
types: defining and non-defining
when to leave out the relative pronoun
rephrasing using relative clauses
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You will find useful activities in this file to learn more about relative clauses
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- Greeting: it is the way to say hello to somebody. Remember it's a formal letter! Don't say hello, what's up and all that stuff!!
- Opening: explain why you are writing the letter briefly (where you bought the item, date...)
- Issues: why you are upset, details about what went wrong with the item you bought
- Complaint: That's the key part of your writing. Express your disatisfaction . Don't use vulgar words, threats or swear words!!
- Demands & Suggestions: They are very similar , but not fully the same. Demands is about stating what you are expecting them to do, how they will make up for your disatisfaction (how they can compensate you). Suggestions is about posing possible solutions to your problems.
- Closing: you have to sign off
- Greeting: it is the way to say hello to somebody. Remember it's a formal letter! Don't say hello, what's up and all that stuff!!
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Tips
- Focus on the most important facts. Don't give unnecessary background information.
- Make sure you include:
- the reason for writing (e.g. I am writing to ...)
- what went wrong
- what you would like to happen now.
- Complaint letters are usually written in a formal style.
- Use passives to be less direct and more formal, e.g. I was served quickly.
- Use Yours faithfully to sign off if you don't know the name of the person you're writing to.
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Fill the gaps with the information next to the complaint letter. This could be a good complaint letter model to be taken into account when you have to write yours.
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Have a look at the template(click on the link below) which contains good info about what to include in a complaint letter and a list of Do's and Don'ts. Then choose ONE of the situations and write a complaint letter (in pdf format) (length: 100 words approx)
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This is a typical student mistake when writing in English. We tend to write long (in fact extremely long!!)sentences which are commonly found in our mother tongue. Consequently, we join sentences which should not be written together (we call them " run-on sentences").
You will find a bunch of run-on sentences in this activity. Try to fix them!
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