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CMA Foundation · Fundamentals of Business Laws and Business Communication · Writing and Drafting for Business Audiences

A manager rewrites the sentence 'We are in receipt of your letter of the 5th inst. and wish to advise that we shall endeavour to effect despatch at the earliest' as 'We received your letter of 5 May and will send the goods by Friday.' Which of the 7 Cs has been mainly improved?

Conciseness and concreteness are improved. The rewrite drops wordy, old-fashioned phrases and replaces the vague 'at the earliest' with a definite day. It was not mainly a matter of courtesy or grammar, because the original was polite and grammatically sound.

  1. AConciseness and concretenessCorrect
  2. BCourtesy only
  3. CCorrectness of grammar only
  4. DConsideration of the reader's culture

Explanation

The revision removes wordy stock phrases (conciseness) and replaces vague 'at the earliest' with a specific date, 'Friday' (concreteness). Courtesy and grammar were not the main issue, since the original was not rude or ungrammatical.

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