Week 8, Derrek Ballard

The editing mistake I found this week is also the paragraph of nonfiction writing I chose to illustrate a tip (of what not to do) on style.  This was in one of my work emails, where a colleague had to research the whereabouts of a few wire transfers.  Here is an excerpt:

"Hi Everyone,

The problem with the 5 referenced payments and in fact 40 GBP wires is that our GBP correspondent failed to make a necessary adjustment in their operating system in relation to our SWIFT BIC change.  Although we were advised that our payments were being held and would be released when their system correction had taken place this did not happen."

Reading this colleague's emails are excruciating for me because there is no CLARITY or CONCISENESS, and there is so much CLUTTER!  Since these are the things we learned about this week, I thought it very appropriate to share.

This is how I would have written this part of the email:

"Good afternoon,

Our GBP correspondent did not make a necessary SWIFT BIC adjustment in their operating system, and 40 GBP wires, including the five in question, were effected.  Although we were told these wires would be released when this issue was corrected, they were not."

I think this colleague of mine could learn a thing or two from this class!