Dear Mr. Wilcox:
Hello, my name is Jenifer Wagner and I'm emailing you in response to your article in the Scroll concerning pedestrian safety. It was very well written, in my opinion. I do have one criticism though: when you use examples in your article, they should be relevant to your subject. Your example of the recent car accident involving a pedestrian was very irrelevant to your story. You would know this had you checked your facts. The reason I know that it was irrelevant was that I was the pedestrian in the accident. First off, don't stop reading this email right now, because I have some very important things to point out and I promise I won't be abusive or harsh in my manner of explaining myself. I know you think that who was at fault "doesn't matter" and that you "don't care" but in an article emphasizing that pedestrians aren't exercising enough safety, it actually matters a lot. I want to start off by saying that I agree that pedestrians do need to exercise caution. But using my accident to illustrate this was very insulting to me, because it made it seem like I wasn't exercising caution. I'll have you know that I did everything I could to keep myself safe. I was not on my phone and I did not have an mp3 player blocking out my surroundings. I hit the button for the flashing beacon before crossing the street. I looked both ways before entering the crosswalk. I continued to look both ways as I was crossing. It wasn't until it was too late that I saw the car that hit me. In the police report, the driver stated that she couldn't see anyone in the crosswalk because her "windshield was foggy from the dust". If you don't believe any of this that I'm saying, I'd be happy to send you a copy of the police report. I really hope that knowing this about the accident shows you that getting facts before writing an article, even an opinion article, is very important. Please remember this as you go about life, writing papers for undergrad or grad school, or even if you go on to publish other writings. I realize that you can't please everyone in what you write, but please note that this email is not concerning pleasing others in what you write. Now, whatever you do in response to this email is not up to me to decide, but please don't be angry that I wrote something that wasn't exactly praiseworthy of your article. The only reason that I wrote this email to you personally, and not to the Scroll editor, was that I didn't want to humiliate or make an example out of you. I just wanted to confront this issue in a nonchalant manner. If you decided to read this e-mail all the way through, thank you. Thank you also for your time.
-Jenifer Wagner
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