It’s only four or five weeks into the semester, but my ‘Writing for Marketing and Public Relations’ class is already affecting the way I read.
For example, only because of this class, I was curious enough to open and read a fundraising letter from my undergraduate college. It was excruciatingly well written (with the exception of the phrase “behooves us.” Nothing behooves in fundraising. It “is essential that we.”) The letter was rhetorically ingenious otherwise.
Last week, I received a terrifically bad letter from the place where I used to have my taxes done. The badness had nothing to do with the content, but rather the presentation. First, while my name and address was printed on the envelope, the return address was unfakably handwritten in blue ballpoint pen under the company’s printed logo. It was lazy of the branch not to have its own stationary; I understand that many H&R Block shopfronts don’t exist 8 months of the year, but it seemed cheap, since this particular branch is open year-round. And I view blue ballpoint pen as tacky. Even worse was the letter itself, which did indeed have the name and location printed: left-justified under the text of and serving as the closing of the letter. But what got the communication dropped into my recycling was the “Dear Client” opening. They could manage to mailmerge my name and new address (which, how did they know that?) onto the envelope, but not the letter? And they couldn’t come up with a better soft opening than “Dear Client”? It was so clinical and disappointing.
