Y05W31WR Improving Our Reading App

Part 1

How to Write

Transactional – Email

A formal letter makes a request, argument or recommendation to a specific person or organisation in a structured, professional format. It is written for an official audience who expects a clear purpose, organised content and a respectful tone. Every sentence should serve the letter’s purpose directly.

  • Ideas & content: State your purpose clearly from the opening. Develop your case with specific, relevant points and close with a clear request or outcome you are seeking.
  • Structure & cohesion: Follow formal letter conventions — opening, body paragraphs, closing. Keep each paragraph focused on one clear point. Use formal connectors to link ideas logically.
  • Voice & audience: Write with respect and authority. Avoid informality, sarcasm or excessive emotion. The reader should feel that you have considered their perspective as well as your own.
  • Language choices: Use formal vocabulary. Avoid contractions. Control modality — words like request, strongly believe and urge you to consider signal conviction without aggression.
  • Conventions: Format correctly — date, salutation, body, close, signature. Spell accurately. Use punctuation to manage formal sentences clearly.

Common pitfalls: Forgetting the formal structure and writing like an email — a letter has conventions that signal professionalism. Making the letter too long by including unnecessary detail, when a clear, direct case is more effective.

Part 2

Your Task Plan for Today

The brief

Question: Write an email to the developers of a reading app you have been using at school. Identify at least one thing that works well and at least two specific problems you have experienced. Suggest clearly what improvements would make the app better for students your age. Use a polite and constructive tone.

Stimulus: You have been using a particular app on your school tablet for your reading activities this term. The app has some useful features but also several problems that are making it frustrating to use. Your teacher has suggested that student feedback sent directly to the app developers is more likely to lead to improvements than a general complaint. She has asked students to write a feedback email.

Task Analysis: Write an email that is helpful and honest. Say what works and what does not work. Give clear suggestions for how to fix the problems. Be polite but direct. Help the developers understand what students need.

Quick Plan

Before you write, plan:

  • What works well — one good feature
  • What does not work — two specific problems
  • Why these problems matter — how do they affect your learning?
  • Your suggestions — how could the app be better?

BLUF line

Start your email with a clear sentence: ‘I have been using your app for reading class and I have some feedback.’ Get straight to the point. The developers are busy.

Key details to include

Be specific. Not: ‘The app is slow.’ Better: ‘Sometimes the app takes 30 seconds to load a page, which is frustrating when I am trying to read.’ Real examples help more.

Tone & voice

Be polite and constructive. You are not complaining. You are helping them improve. Say things like: ‘I like the highlight feature, but...’ Balance praise with problems.