StructureAs with any other piece of writing, a principal key to success with the formal letter or e-mail is to know clearly the purpose for which you are writing. A business letter or formal e-mail should be short, businesslike, and to the point, and to enable it to be so, you have to know what the point is.A standard business letter or formal e-mail has three main sections:- the introduction, in which you state briefly the subject matter and purpose of the letter. This will usually consist of a single paragraph.
- the body of the letter, in which you discuss the subject matter or explain your purpose more fully. This may well take several paragraphs. The general rule of One idea, one paragraph applies here, as in other types of writing.
- the conclusion, in which you restate your purpose and, where appropriate, indicate what action you believe should be taken to put that purpose into effect.
It is possible to add a fourth section, a postscript, which comes at the end of the letter, after your signature and any supplementary information such as a list of attachments. It is sometimes suggested that a postscript is important and that many people tend to read the postscript first. That may be so in the case of promotional letters, where a postscript can be used to offer an additional inducement to a potential customer or to issue a reminder—for instance, that a particular offer is only available for a limited amount of time. In most cases, however, a postscript should be superfluous, because you will have planned your letter well enough to cover all the important points before you reach the end. Only use a postscript, then, if it is part of your plan and you wish to tease your reader slightly by withholding a valuable tidbit until the very end. It is probably not a good idea to attach a postscript such as this to the end of a cover letter when applying for a job:P.S. I also speak excellent Spanish and have represented my state in table tennis at a senior level. If these abilities are immediately relevant to the position you are applying for, mention them in the body of your letter. If they are not, save them for your résumé.LayoutLet us deal first with the layout of the beginning and the end of a letter. The layout of the body of the text, and indeed of the letter as a whole, will be dealt with and illustrated under format (page 219).Before the salutation or greeting, in which you address the person for whom the letter is intended (Dear Ms. Jones, Dear Dr. Ramirez, etc.), the following items are presented in the order given below:- your address, telephone number, and e-mail address
- the date
- the title, name, and address of the recipient
- the subject line
The top portion of a standard letter, therefore, usually looks something like this: Department of Social Sciences
Alice B. Toklas College
3341 East 19th Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120-8933
(918) 502-9977
gbbanks@abt.edu
December 15, 2005 Ms. Kathryn J. Jones
Subscriptions Manager
Whitewell Publishing
1025 Ocean Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 13000-4202 Subject: Cancellation of subscription Dear Ms. Jones: It is important that your contact details feature prominently at the top so that the recipient has no difficulty in replying to your letter and has a choice of means to do so. The date should also always be shown, as it is a standard point of reference, and if the correspondence continues for some period of time, it may be necessary to know who said what when—this is especially so when something is in dispute. Finally, the subject line (introduced, as above, by the word Subject followed by a colon) lets the recipient know immediately what the latter is principally about. (It also reminds you of your basic purpose in writing.)At the bottom of the letter, beneath the closing (the conventional farewell and expression of regard Sincerely, Sincerely yours, etc.) and your signature, the following should appear in the order given below:- your name, printed or typewritten
- your job title (if relevant)
- a supplement line (if relevant) giving a reference number for this particular piece of correspondence
- a list of any attachments
- the postscript (if necessary)
So the conclusion of a standard letter would look something like this: Sincerely yours, Gordon B. Banks Gordon B. Banks
Professor of Sociology Attachments (1)
P.S. I should be grateful if you would pass on my comments to the editors of the magazine. Let us now look at the layout of a complete letter. FormatThere are three standard formats for laying out a business letter. The first is known as the "block format"; the second, as the "modified block format"; and the third, as the "semi-block format." As the names suggest, there is not a great deal of difference between them.The block format gives a letter a slightly more formal appearance. In block format everything is aligned to the left. Here is an example of a letter in block format: Department of Social Sciences
Alice B. Toklas College
3341 East 19th Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120-8933
(918) 502-9977
gbbanks@abt.edu December 15, 2005 Ms. Kathryn J. Jones
Subscriptions Manager
Whitewell Publishing
1025 Ocean Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 13000-4202 Subject: Cancellation of subscription Dear Ms. Jones: I wish to cancel the college's subscription to the International Journal of Social and Institutional Affairs once the current issue is complete, in other words, after delivery of volume 26, number 4, which was, may I point out, scheduled for publication last month. As the college has been a subscriber to this journal since it began publication 28 years ago, I feel I owe a brief explanation of why we are now withdrawing our support. It will also give me a rather reluctant personal satisfaction to make my feelings known. Not only has every single number of the last two years been published late, in some instances more than three months late, but the quality of the articles in the Journal has, in my view, declined markedly in both content and presentation. I do not feel that the present editorial board is being sufficiently strict in ensuring that the articles it accepts genuinely contribute to the advancement of knowledge and the promotion of scholarly debate on social science issues. I am quite certain that standards of copyediting and proofreading have deteriorated to the point where some articles are barely intelligible. To back up this final point, I am enclosing a copy of the last issue in which I have personally marked the spelling and grammatical errors. May I say in conclusion, that it gives me no pleasure to bid farewell to a magazine that I used to look forward to with eager anticipation. Sincerely yours, Gordon B. Banks Gordon B. Banks
Professor of Sociology Attachments (1)
P.S. I should be grateful if you would pass on my comments to the editors of the magazine. The modified block format arranges material slightly differently. It aims at a look that is closer to that of the traditional handwritten letter. It places some items (your address, telephone number, and e-mail address, and the date at the top of the letter; the closing and your signature and title at the end of the letter) in the center or on the right-hand margin. It is a little less formal than block format, so let us illustrate it with a less formal version of Professor Banks's letter to Ms. Jones.Department of Social Sciences
Alice B. Toklas College
3341 East 19th Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120-8933
(918) 502-9977
gbbanks@abt.edu December 15, 2005 Ms. Kathryn J. Jones
Subscriptions Manager
Whitewell Publishing
1025 Ocean Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 13000-4202 Subject: Cancellation of subscription Dear Kathryn Jones: I'm sorry, but the college is going to have to cancel its subscription to the IJSIA, with the last number of this volume (26:4). By the way, wasn't that scheduled to be published last month? It's the usual reason, I'm afraid. Our student numbers are falling, our funding is being cut back, and if we can save a few dollars on our publications budget, we have to do it. I have to say, though, that the IJSIA isn't quite what it was. One or two of the articles in recent issues have been, to be frank, shallow, poorly researched, and full of grammatical errors. But it was a great magazine in its day, and I shall miss it. Sincerely,
Gordon B. Banks
Gordon B. Banks
Professor of Sociology The above letter in the semi-block format would be exactly the same except that the paragraphs would be indented.Salutations and ClosingsThe rather quaintly titled "salutation" is, as has been mentioned earlier, the greeting with which a letter begins. Wherever possible, it is best to address your letter to a named person, using the addressee's title and surname, first name and surname, or first name, whichever is most appropriate to your relationship with that person:Dear Ms. Jones: Dear Kathryn Jones: Dear Kathryn: Note that the salutation in business correspondence ends with a colon, not a comma, in standard American usage (a comma is used in standard British, Australian, etc., usage).It is slightly less formal to address someone as Dear Kathryn Jones than as Dear Ms. Jones. The combination of first name and surname is useful if you do not know the proper title of the person you are writing to. Kathryn Jones, for example, might be Miss, Ms., Mrs., Dr., Prof., Rev., and so forth. Using only the addressee's first name implies a certain amount of acquaintance and is likely to usher in a less formal style of letter.If you do not know the name of the person you are addressing, you have a choice between a reference to the job title or statusDear Complaints Manager: Dear Customer: Dear Supporter: or using a formula such asDear Sir: Dear Madam: Dear Sir or Madam: Dear colleague: To whom it may concern: Writers on business correspondence suggest that if you are writing from a business or similar organization to a member of the public, you should try to identify the addressee in some way and only resort to Dear Sir or Madam when all else fails. If you are writing as a member of the public to an organization, however, it often makes sense to use that formula. You should not, of course, use Dear Sir(s) if there is a possibility that your letter might be dealt with by a woman.Traditionally, certain types of salutation are paired with certain forms of closing. A letter beginning with Dear Sir or Madam, which would generally usher in a text written in a rather formal style, traditionally closes with Sincerely (American convention) or Yours faithfully (British convention). Letters beginning Dear Ms. Jones or Dear Kathryn Jones also usually end with Sincerely yours or Sincerely. More informal letters (Dear Kathryn) can have a variety of closes from Yours truly to Cordially, With best wishes or Best wishes.
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