May I request you to kindly collect the brief?
or
May I request you to kindly collect the brief.
Which of the above two sentences is correctly punctuated?
Added afterwards:
This request is to be made to a very senior official. This request is meant to be a polite form of asking the official to do the task of collecting the brief. He, being a very senior official, could not be given a command; he can only be requested, where the request should be extra polite and he does not feel that he is being commanded.
Answer
You really have two problems. The first is a matter of punctuation, and as such this is a matter of style, so the answer to it will depend on what manual of style you use. Mine is the Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends that a request “courteously disguised as a quesiton” not be terminated with a question mark but a period. Thus
May I request you to kindly collect the brief.
The second problem is a social one. If you are writing in a culture that requires more attention be paid to politeness and hierarchy than is required in Chicago, then by all means replace the period with a question mark.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Dinesh Kumar Garg , Answer Author : deadrat
