Writing an Email to a Colleague: Feedback on a Guide for Newbies

Situations for Sending an Email to Colleague

In TOEFL Writing Part 2, you are tasked to compose an email based on a given situation. One common scenario is writing an email to a colleague about an event that has already taken place. In this case, the email typically focuses on providing feedback or suggesting ways to improve future events.

Because this type of email serves a professional purpose, it is important to maintain an appropriate level of formality throughout the message.

Maintain Formality

The level of formality in an email depends on the context and the relationship between the sender and the recipient. In TOEFL Writing Part 2, emails addressed to colleagues are generally written for professional purposes. Although colleagues are not strangers, the relationship is typically work-related rather than personal.

For this reason, casual or informal language is usually inappropriate unless the prompt explicitly allows it. Maintaining a clear and professional tone is essential in this task.

Now, let’s try writing an email based on a similar scenario.

Practice Question

Email Prompt

You will read some information and use the information to write an email. You will have 7 minutes to write the email.

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Your colleague, Emma, recently prepared a short written guide for new team members explaining how to handle routine customer requests. Several people have already started using the guide in their daily work. While the guide is generally helpful, you noticed a few points that could be clearer or more practical for new employees.

You would like to share your feedback with Emma.

Write an email to Emma. In your email, do the following:

• Explain what you found helpful about the guide.
• Point out one or two areas that could be improved.
• Offer a brief suggestion to make the guide easier for new team members to use.

Write as much as you can and in complete sentences.

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Your Response:
To: Emma
Subject: Feedback on the New Team Guide

Remember that you only have 7 minutes to complete the task. This means you are not expected to provide an in-depth analysis of the problem or detailed suggestions. Keep your ideas simple and focus on clarity.

Also, since you are writing an email to a colleague, the tone does not need to be overly formal. As long as you avoid highly colloquial expressions, a polite and natural style is enough.

Model Answer

To: Emma
Subject: Feedback on the New Team Guide

Hi Emma,

I read through the guide you created for new team members and found it very practical. The step-by-step layout makes it easy to follow, especially for people who are still getting used to daily tasks. The examples you included are also helpful in showing how requests are handled in real situations.

One point that might confuse new employees is the section on priority cases, since it assumes some background knowledge. Adding a short explanation or a simple example there could make the guide even clearer. You might also consider a brief checklist at the end to help readers review the key steps.

Overall, it’s a solid resource and already very useful.

Best,
Joe

Opening Greeting

This email is addressed to a colleague, so the opening can be simple. If you know the recipient well and the situation does not require a high level of formality, starting with “Hi [Name],” is appropriate.

If you want to sound slightly more formal, “Dear [Name]” is also acceptable. Using “Dear” signals that the relationship is professional and business-oriented rather than personal.

Explain What You Found Helpful about the Guide

This prompt asks you to explain how the written guide helps beginners manage routine customer requests. When answering this type of question, it’s often more effective to focus on the guide’s structure rather than its detailed content.

Commenting on structure allows you to stay concise. Describing specific instructions requires imagination and takes time, which is not ideal when you are working under a strict time limit. Since the goal is not to summarize the guide but to explain why it is helpful, structure and formatting are safe and practical points to highlight:

The step-by-step layout makes it easy to follow, especially for people who are still getting used to daily tasks. The examples you included are also helpful in showing how requests are handled in real situations.

Referring to detailed content requires imagination, because you need to explain what the guide actually teaches. Structure and formatting, on the other hand, can be evaluated directly. In many cases, it is enough to state that the organization is clear and well designed, using appropriate expressions.

One or Two Areas that Could Be Improved

This prompt requires more imagination than simply explaining what was helpful. To respond efficiently, one useful strategy is to focus on a broadly applicable area for improvement. If you choose a point that can apply to many workplace guides, you can reuse the same idea across different emails in TOEFL Writing Part 2.

For example, pointing out that a guide may be highly professional or assume too much prior knowledge is a versatile option. This type of comment sounds reasonable in many contexts and doesn’t depend on specific details.

In fact, the model email uses this approach. It mentions that the section on priority cases might confuse new employees, because it assumes some background knowledge:

One point that might confuse new employees is the section on priority cases, since it assumes some background knowledge.

The underlined expressions in this example are especially useful, as they can be reused in many situations where you need to point out a potential issue. By adjusting only the remaining parts of the sentence, you can save time and respond more easily under time pressure.

Offer Room for Improvement

Finally, you are asked to suggest how the guide could be improved. This may sound difficult at first, but it is actually quite simple.

A practical way to approach this is to think of the opposite of the issue you mentioned earlier. If the guide feels too professional or assumes too much background knowledge, the improvement would be to make it easier to follow and more accessible to beginners.

Guides that are easy to understand usually share some common features, such as:

• Clear examples
• Detailed explanations
• Little or no specialized terminology
• Simple, straightforward language

You can suggest that your colleague incorporate one of these elements to improve clarity. This point is also reflected in the model response:

Adding a short explanation or a simple example there could make the guide even clearer.