Editing a Branch Staffing Representation
The following paragraph is a draft email from a branch officer to the regional office. It contains grammatical and stylistic errors.
'Respected Sir, I am writing to bring to your notice that the branch have been facing a shortage of staff since last two months. Due to this, customer service is affecting and several account opening forms are pending. The branch manager, along with two officers, have requested for additional staff. We are hopeful that the matter will be look into at the earliest. Kindly do the needful and oblige.'
The regional office has asked for a corrected version before forwarding the matter to the zonal head. You have to edit the paragraph without changing its meaning and decide whether the closing phrase is suitable for contemporary formal correspondence.
1. Identify any four grammatical errors in the draft, correct them, and state the reason in one line each.
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Four clear errors:
- 'the branch have been facing' → 'the branch has been facing'. The subject 'branch' is singular, so the verb must be singular.
- 'since last two months' → 'for the last two months'. 'Since' is used with a point in time; 'for' is used with a duration.
- 'customer service is affecting' → 'customer service is being affected'. The service is the thing suffering the effect; the passive construction is needed.
- 'will be look into' → 'will be looked into'. The passive requires the past participle 'looked' after 'be'.
A fifth defensible correction is 'have requested for' → 'has requested': the subject is 'the branch manager, along with two officers', which takes a singular verb, and 'request' is transitive, so 'for' is unnecessary.
2. Rewrite the email in 45–60 words in a concise, formal style, retaining all key facts.
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Respected Sir, I wish to report that the branch has faced a staff shortage for the last two months. Consequently, customer service is being affected and several account-opening forms are pending. The branch manager and two officers have requested additional staff. We hope the matter will be looked into at the earliest. Kindly take necessary action.
This version retains the shortage, its duration, the service impact, the pending forms, the request for staff and the closing request, while removing repetition and errors.
3. Is 'Kindly do the needful and oblige' appropriate in contemporary formal Indian business writing? Give a reasoned answer and suggest a replacement.
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It is understandable but not preferred in contemporary formal writing. 'Do the needful' is vague: it does not specify what action is required, and it shifts the burden of interpretation to the recipient. 'Oblige' is archaic in modern correspondence and can sound like a formula rather than a clear request. In a bank's internal note, clarity matters because the regional office must know whether it is being asked to sanction posts, redeploy staff or forward the matter.
A better closing is: 'Kindly take necessary action at the earliest' or 'We request your early intervention in sanctioning additional staff.' The replacement is specific, polite and action-oriented without being curt.