English for personal assistants - part 27 potx

130 Writing CVs with impact, covering letters, and letters of reference
Sample personal reference
111 Winston Road
London SE11 4PP
Dr Mark Coolie
Save the Children
100 Piccadilly
London W1 7SB
November 30, 20XX
Dear Dr Coolie
I have known Johanna Carsten for 10 years in both a business and social capacity.
We have, in fact, worked together for the past 3 years on a voluntary basis raising
funds to establish a daycare centre for disadvantaged children. I have found her to
be utterly reliable, dependable, and fully committed to improving the quality of life
for these children.
Moreover, she has been acting as an unpaid bookkeeper for the charity and has, at
all times, been completely trustworthy and conscientious in handling our funds.
I would, therefore, recommend her heartily as a valuable addition to the Board of
your organisation.
Yours sincerely
Marsha Green
15 Conference invitations and requests for
abstracts
, cards for various occasions
Organising a conference
When inviting speakers or delegates to a conference you’re organising, you need to
make sure the person gets all the information they require. You may put this
information on your Website and/or you may directly mail or email particular
individuals.
᭿
Task 1

Brainstorm the information needed by speakers or delegates.
᭤ Letter of invitation
᭤
General information
᭤
᭤
᭤
᭤
Registration
᭤
᭤
᭤
᭤
Engaging speakers
Organisers can recruit speakers either by invitation or by a call for papers. In either
case, action should be taken well ahead of the planned event: a lead-in time of one
year should normally be thought of as a minimum.
Call for papers and abstracts
᭿
Task 2
Complete the Call for Papers and Abstracts template with words from the box.
132 Conference invitations and requests for abstracts
accompanied / acknowledge / contribute / including / cover / likely / presented /
queries / submit / underway
Call for Papers
Planning for the 20XX ABC Technical Conference is already (1) and again we
are seeking ideas, speakers and sponsors.
We invite speakers on all types of XXX development to (2) The programme
will (3) a variety of subjects, including XXX. Any topic (4) to be of
interest to Linnel developers and enthusiasts will be considered.

The topics (5) in recent years have included:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
More information about previous events can be found at: (list Websites).
Abstracts
Abstracts for the conference should be (6) by a short biography and, ideally,
should be about 250-500 words long. Final papers should normally last about 45
minutes, (7) 10 minutes for questions and answers. If you need more time for
your presentation, please tell us when you (8) your abstract.
Abstracts should be submitted to the conference organisers electronically through
this form (Web link).
We shall (9) all submissions.
Significant Dates
Closing date for abstracts 29 March 20XX
Accepted authors notified by 18 April 20XX
Final papers due by 17 June 20XX
Particular (10) should be sent either to (office address), or to the 20XX
programme committee (email address)
Letter of invitation to a conference speaker
᭿
Task 3
The first paragraph of the letter of invitation below is in the correct place. However,
the subsequent paragraphs have been jumbled up. Put them into the correct order by
writing the numbers2–8next to the appropriate paragraph.
NB. There are two paragraphs after the closing salutation.
Organising a conference 133
Dear ***,
I am writing to you in my capacity as Program Committee Co-Chair for the 18th
Annual Computational Linguistics Conference, to be held in Hong Kong, October

1–8, 20XX. As you may know, the ACL conference is the premier international
conference of note in the field of computational linguistics and natural language
processing. I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to present a talk at the
conference as an invited speaker. Invited talks will be one hour long, including a 10
minute question & answer session.
I will be away for an extended period and will not be able to read my email on a
regular basis during this time. So please cc Professor Ida Grenville, an area chair
and member of the ACL-20XX program committee, in your response. She has
kindly agreed to coordinate the invited speaker sessions during my absence.
PS If you accept our invitation to give an invited talk at the conference, you can
choose to write a paper up to 8 pages long that will be included in the conference
proceedings. Along with the paper hard copy, we request you provide a PDF file for
inclusion in the CD-ROM version of the proceedings. If you choose to write a paper,
please provide the hard copy and PDF file by August 1st. Please visit the conference
Webpage ( and click on “Instructions for Authors” for
specific details on the formatting and submission of the camera-ready papers.
Regardless of whether you choose to provide a paper for the proceedings, we
request you to provide us a title and an abstract (up to 200 words) by August 1st,
20XX.
We have not yet established on which day your talk would be scheduled; should
you accept this invitation, there is some flexibility we can use to accommodate your
own scheduling preferences (although it would be on one of the main conference
session days, Tuesday October 3 through Friday October 6).
I do very much hope that you will be able to accept this invitation.
In appreciation of your agreement to provide an invited talk, ACL would provide the
cost of an economy class airfare from your home institution to the conference, hotel
accommodation during the conference, and free registration to the conference.
Yours sincerely
***
Writing cards – useful phrases for various occasions

It often falls to the PA to buy the card and the present or flowers for someone’s
leaving do, retirement party or stay in hospital. So you rush around, consult
colleagues, check on how much ‘spending power’ you’ve got, and go out and make the
agonising choice. And running through the back of your mind, you’re wondering
whether they will just love this gift or will they think ‘What is it?’ or ‘Why on earth
would I want one of those?’. But then you’ve got to write the card. Isn’t it strange how
words can just fail you at that moment? Fear not. Help is at hand.
Get well cards
So, you’re almost ready to send out that get-well flower delivery but you’re stuck for
words as to what to write on the card. It’s OK; we’re not all the creative type. In
addition, a get-well card can be a difficult thing to write. The important thing is that
the card and its message should fit the person.
᭿ Task 4
Match the get-well card messages below to these two types of people. Choose two
messages for each person.
People
A. a young bubbly woman, in a junior position at work, who broke her leg on a
skiing holiday
B. a man in his 60s who is reserved, and in quite a high position at work, who is at
home but suffering from whiplash after a car accident
Get well messages
1. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
2. We miss you at the office! Get well soon.
3. Our thoughts are with you, hope you feel better soon.
4. Hope these brighten your room and cheer you up.
Here are some other phrases that you could use or adapt to fit the situation:
᭤
We need you at the office. Come back soon.
᭤
I hope you’re back on your feet soon.

᭤
Sending you all the healing thoughts in the world.
᭤
Sending you sunshine and cheer!
᭤
I hope this brightens your day!
134 Conference invitations and requests for abstracts