Required information

Document Makeover #$6$: BAD NEWS MESSAGE $$ COLLEAGUE

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BAD NEWS MESSAGE $$ COLLEAGUE

Relevant Concepts

$$ Bad news messages

$$ Internal messages

$$ Sentence structure

$$ Verb tense

$$ Punctuation

$$ Number usage

$$ Professional tone

$$ Understanding your audience

The following internal bad news message is announcing a company$-$wide data breach and recommends actions that should be taken. This message does not employ a professional tone and is unclear. Additionally, the message contains several verb errors $($tense and passive voice$),$ number usage errors, grammatical errors, spelling errors, sentence errors $($run$-$on$,$ comma splices, etc.$),$ and style errors.

To: PRCMASSOC@cob.com

From: gracekc@cob.com

Subject: Potential Information Breach

Good Afternoon Associates:

CoB Associates recognizes the importance of securing all personal data both internally and shared with vendors. This is why members of our IT department invests much of its time and resources into creating and managing systems to guard our information. Keeping your personal date secure always will be a dedication and priority of ours.

Today word was received that HealthWise had a data brech so despite our ongoing efforts to secure personal information stored in our systems and gain assurance our providers are doing the same. At this time we are unclear as to what information and which of our employee if any were part of this breach. Please know that we are in ongoing contact with HealthWise to determine the magnitude of this potential information breach.

While we wait for further details, we recommend that you and all of your dependents take the following steps:

$1.$ Freeze your credit files with the $3$ credit reporting agencies contact information provided in the attachment.

$2.$ Change your user name and password on all accounts.

$3.$ Monitor your credit and debit accounts daily.

$4.$ Watch for phishing scams.

Rest assured that we take this situation very seriously and will do all within our power to secure your data. In the meantime we are negotiating with HealthWise to provide a one year minimum of free credit monitoring for all employees. Once the negotiations are complete, you will receive instructions for how to redeem this service. All employees are encouraged strongly by CoB Associates to take advantage of the free credit monitoring service.

Please feel free to contact human resources with any comments or concerns.

Kind regards,

Kate

$--------------------------------$

Kate C$.$ Grace, HR Director

CoB Consulting Group

Office: $740-555-5551|$ Cell: $740-555-5554$

Part $1$: Identify sentences with errors in the message

Instructions: Within the body of the e$-$mail below, highlight the sentences that contain errors. $($Click once to highlight and click again to remove highlight.$)$