The following section presents excerpts from a student's cover letter for a Web Application Development position at Nintendo of America. The student hopes to impress recruiters with his experience, which, he believes, fulfils the job requirements. However, the recruiters did not find the cover letter convincing enough. In the challenges that follow, try to consider the options presented so that the student can make the most of effective case for the audience.

Directions: Identify and improve text that can help the student use coherence, concision, and correctness more effectively.

Challenge 3: Correctness

Your Goal

Use punctuation to create breaks between information

Punctuation Types

Comma (,)

1. Creates pauses in your messages, separating ideas and sentences

Example: As you are going through this activity, you will see how correctness markers are used.

2. Identifies information within a sentence which needs to be offset

Example: Some response options may work for audiences who pay attention to different aspects of your text. Other options, however, work well for different audiences.

Semi Colon (;)

1. Connects related information but making sure each piece is separate.

Example: This activity focuses on correctness ; other activities focus on different skills.

2. Enhances the distinction between the ideas in two sentences when it is placed before transitions ("however," therefore," for example" etc.)

Example: Three types of punctuation are shown here ;however, only one is most appropriate for this activity.

Colon (:)

1. Introduces a series

Example: This guide presents the following information about Correctness: different purposes of punctuation, examples, and feedback on the activity's response options.

2. Calls attention to an idea by explaining it further

Example: After the Coherence and Concision activities, there was one last skill to look at: Correctness.

Note about the Colon:Different from the colon, the dash ("—") signals a more causal afterthought.

Example: The activities took a few minutes to get through—much less time than anticipated.

Comments on Response Options

Problem Text

I believe the quality of my education in algorithm design and my experience in team management can help me contribute to one of your main efforts at Nintendo of America; collaborating with other gaming companies to develop applications that resemble Nintendo games.

Option A

“America:”

This is the most effective punctuation marker if we intend to introduce the idea of a series of users. This would help an audience who may want to notice the main effort of Nintendo.

Option B

“America-”

For this type of report, a dash is more casual than a colon. However, it could be appropriate for a less formal report or an email.

Option C

“America,”

This uses a comma, which is less formal than a colon in this type of report, but unlike the second option, it is not effective in enhancing the distinction between the efforts of Nintendo and what the actual effort was.