The Greeting & Signoff
The Greeting
There are two ways you can begin a formal letter.
Use Dear Sir or Madam if you don’t know the name of the person you are writing to.
Use Dear + surname if you do know their name, e.g. Dear Mr Smith or Dear Mrs Jones.
You would know the name of a manager from another department in your workplace so, make up a surname for them.
If you were writing an informal invitation letter to a friend, you would use their first name, e.g. ‘Dear Joanne’.
The greeting you use will determine how you sign off your letter.
The Signoff
For a formal letter, there are two main options. The correct one will depend on who you are addressing:
Dear Mr Smith (name known) – Yours sincerely
Dear Sir/Madam (name unknown) – Yours faithfully
You could also use ‘Kind regards’. This is formal but friendly and is appropriate for most situations. It is particularly useful if you struggle to remember how to spell ‘sincerely’ and ‘faithfully’.
Always sign off a formal letter with your full name, e.g. Jacky Spear
For an informal letter to a friend, use one of these phrases followed by your first name:
For example,
See you soon,
Jacky
For our letter, we will use this greeting and signoff:
Dear Mr Evans...
....Yours sincerely,
Jacky Spear
We are now ready to think up some ideas to write about. We have the guidelines of the 3 bullet points to help us so this won’t be difficult.
How To Generate Ideas for IELTS Letters
You only have to write 150 words, so you won’t need many ideas but do make sure that you write about each bullet point and develop each idea fully.
They don't have to be the best ideas you can possibly think of. Go with your first thoughts and don’t waste time trying to think of better ideas. However, they must relate directly to the bullet points.
Note them beside each bullet point on the exam paper, like this:
You are organising a seminar for your company.
Write a letter to the manager of another department inviting them to give a presentation at the seminar. In your letter:
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