A good letter should be clear and concise with short sentences and simple words.
It should be straightforward and polite.
It is better if it is limited to one single - spaced typewritten page.
A business letter is often judged on the proper construction – format, content, grammar,
punctuation, openings and closings.
There is no place for fancy fonts in business letters.
The elements of a standard business letter and their functions are given below 1. HEADING OR RETURN ADDRESS (Sender’s Address) Your address (or the address of the company you represent) forms the Heading.
2. DATE Leave two blank lines after the return address. Always spell out the month and then the day, a
comma followed by the year.
Eg. August 2, 2014
3. INSIDE ADDRESS (Receiver’s Address) Leave two blank lines after the date. Then type the address of the person or company to whom you are writing.
Eg.
The Manager
Nokia Service centre
15, Anna Salai
Chennai
4. SALUTATION Type ‘Dear Sir’ (or) ‘Sir’, followed by the person’s name. End the line with a colon. If you don’t know the name of the person, use
Eg.
Dear Editor, (or) Dear Madam, (or) Dear Sir,
5. BODY Align your message on the left margin. Skip a line before starting a new paragraph. But do not indent the paragraph’s first line. Make sure that each paragraph is clear and concise.
The first paragraph of letter should introduce your purpose of the letter.
The body of the letter should present the points to make clear your purpose. The points could be covered in a bulleted or numbered list so that the information is easy to process.
Your concluding part should highlight your message. It should also clearly state what action; the receiver of the letter needs to take, in order to achieve the purpose.
6. CLOSING Leave two lines of space after your last paragraph. Then use a conventional closing, followed by a comma.
Eg. Yours sincerely, /Yours respectfully, /Yours truly,
7. SIGNATURE Your signature appears below your closing. Use both your first and last name.
Eg. Mrs.Radha Mathivanan (and not) Radha
