How To

A letter is written or printed means of communication addressed to a person or an organization. People use this form of communication to deliver messages. They can be  good news, an offer, a report, demands, requests, information, claims, instructions, etc. This form of communication has developed drastically. It has changed into electronic mails or letters, which are usually called e-mails. Though most people have used e-mails, the traditional form of a letter is still widely used specially for formal, business, and official use. Check the following elements of  business letters :

• Letter Head
• Date Line
• Inside Address
• Attention Line (When necessary)
• Subject Line (When necessary)
• Salutation
• Letter Body
• Complimentary Closes
• Signature Line
• Identification Initials (When necessary, used by large organizations)
• Enclose Reference (When necessary)

The following are the steps to write a good business letter. Before you begin, make sure you know what kind of letter format you are going to use. If your company has printed its letter head in a paper, it indicates what kind of format the company usually uses. If you are not sure you can just choose the following business letter formats. This format is actually just a matter of preference. I believe nobody will blame you for creating your own format.

Steps To Write Business Letters

Letter Head

Most of companies have printed their letter head on the top of the papers they are going to use.  It usually consists of the company’s name, logo and its address, website address etc. You can type it if your company does not print its letter head. If we write a personal letter, we usually write our own name and address.

Date Line

Below the letter head or our name and address, we put the date of the letter. Make sure you write the form that is really clear to everyone. We know American and British Styles are different.

Inside Address

After we put the date of the letter, we put the name of a person or organization we are writing to. Do not forget to put the complete address.

Attention Line (optional)

If we like, we can put attention line after the organization address. With this attention line, the letter will be sent directly to the person or division we write on this line. For example : Attention : Mr. Brian Smith.

Salutation

After we write the inside address, we put a salutation such as “Dear Sir”, “Dear Madam”, “Dear Mr. Williams”, “Dear Mrs. White,” etc.

Subject/Reference

Just before the first paragraph of the body of the letter, we can put a subject or reference. For example : Subject : Your Order Confirmation .

Body of The Letter

After subject line, we can start writing the body of the letter. It usually consists of the opening paragraph, the content paragraph, the closing paragraph.

Complimentary Closing

Just before we put our signature, we usually the complementary closing such as : Sincerely, Sincerely yours.

Signature Line

We put our signature here.

Identification Initials (optional)

It is usually used by a large organization or company. Identification initials is usually the initials of the typists.

Enclosure Reference:

When we have one or two attachments, we state it at this part of a letter so that the recipient is aware of this.