65 Market Street Val Haven, CT 95135 June 30, 2004 Customer Service Cool Sports, LLC 8423 Green Terrace Road Asterville, WA 65435 Dear Sir   I am writing in to complain about the service I received in your supermarket last week. Firstly, I was unable to find the pet food section, so I asked one of your staff to help me instead of showing me to the right place, he simply shrugged and walked away. Then, after standing in a queue at the checkout for over fifteen minutes, I reached the end only to be told by the cashier that her shift was over and I would have to join another queue. As if that was not bad enough, when I finally managed to pay, the cashier overcharged me. However, when I pointed out her mistake, she did not apologize but was rude and unfriendly. As you can imagine, I was extremely upset by the treatment I received and I will certainly not be shopping in your supermarket again. I hope that you will improve your staff training methods, and that your staff will be more polite and helpful to customers from now on.   Yours faithfully, mavis edwards Mavis Edwards

Analysing the information structure

What’s the type of this text? -a letter

What is the genre of this text? -a letter of complaint

How do we understand this? -Because the writer tells his complaints about the bad service to the manager in his letter.

Why do we write a complaint letter? What is the purpose? In general, the purpose of a complaint letter is to tell your complaints about a certain product or service to the head of this company and ask for a solution.

What is the writer’s purpose in this letter? - He wants to show his unpleasantness of the service in this supermarket and also wants the manager to improve their staff training methods.

What are the structures of a complaint letter?

There are two addresses at the top of the letter: The first address is the writer’s address and, after that there comes date, Then, there is the address of the company or shopping centres to which you write,

How do you begin the letter? -Dear Mr Sabancı/Koç/Ak. - Dear Sir/Madam

In which part of the letter does the writer introduce the topic to the reader? 1. Paragraph: the introduction part Why he is writing the letter.

In which part of the letter does the writer tell about his complaints? In the 2., 3. and 4. paragraphs he points out his complaints. What happened, Why it was annoying.

How does the writer support his complaints, then? He makes his explanations and justifications in these paragraphs.

In which part of the text does the writer -reemphasize his/her main complaint? -suggest solution(s)? In the last paragraph, he states his unpleasantness again and suggests some solutions. What he wants them to do.

How does he end his letter? in a formal way, yours faithfully / yours sincerely, signature, and name.

Language Use & Register

Does the writer give the information in an order Does the writer give the information in an order? If so, what sort of order is it? -logical order

How does the writer give this logical order? He begins with the introduction, and then states his complaints from weaker to the strongest one, later he comes to conclusion.

He uses “first, then, etc.” to give the logical order. Which phrases does the writer use to give the logical order of the text? He uses “first, then, etc.” to give the logical order.

Which tense is used in this text? He begins with the present continuous tense as he is writing at this moment, then, he continues with the simple past tense. Because he tells about past events, and in the last paragraph he uses future continuous tense and simple present tense. Because he suggests some solutions for the future.

How does the writer link the ideas together? “So, instead of, after, when, as, but”. These are the linking words. “Firstly, then, however”. These are the transitions.

What other transitions and conjunctions you know?

Look at the text and identify all the words that are related to “supermarket” in the letter.

Now, identify all the words that are related to “the customer’s unpleasantness”.

Now, look at the text and find the pronouns “I, s/he, your, her, we… Now, look at the text and find the pronouns “I, s/he, your, her, we….etc”. Now, look at the text and find the articles “the/a/an”.

65 Market Street Val Haven, CT 95135 June 30, 2004 Customer Service Cool Sports, LLC 8423 Green Terrace Road Asterville, WA 65435 Dear Sir I am writing in to complain about the service I received in your supermarket last week. Firstly, I was unable to find the pet food section, so I asked one of your staff to help me instead of showing me to the right place, he simply shrugged and walked away. Then, after standing in a queue at the checkout for over fifteen minutes, I reached the end only to be told by the cashier that her shift was over and I would have to join another queue. As if that was not bad enough, when I finally managed to pay, the cashier overcharged me. However, when I pointed out her mistake, she did not apologize but was rude and unfriendly. As you can imagine, I was extremely upset by the treatment I received and I will certainly not be shopping in your supermarket again. I hope that you will improve your staff training methods, and that your staff will be more polite and helpful to customers from now on. Yours faithfully, mavis edwards Mavis Edwards

THE END 