Secret To Successful Business Letter Essay, Research Paper
How to write a successful business letter.
Name: Nguyen The Hoang
Email: thanhlyhh@mail.hut.edu.vn
Finished: 1/1/2001
Part I. Introduction.
1. Rationale
Letter-writing is an essential part of business. On the other hand, going to be a graduate of English, I intend to use my English in business. I, therefore, tried to learn to write business letter. Firstly, I found it so easy.
One day, i read an article saying that the ?U.S. Post Office handles 300 million pieces of mail every day? but ?a two percent response rate is exceptionally high? and ?a manufacturer mailing 1,000 sales letters expects that fewer than 20 people will respond to the pitch?. Then i knew that what I have learnt was just a simple theory. Real success in writing business letter is lying somewhere else. Thus, I started to find that ?somewhere else?.
The study to find secrets in writing a good business letter is not only do good for myself, but also for many of my college-mates, who have the same intention as mine. That?s the motivation that urges me to do this assignment.
2. Objectives of the study
Choosing this topic, I aim at the following objectives:
- To discover what lies under a sucsessful business letter
- To find out the way to create an effective letter.
- To suggest a good way to succeed in writing business letter.
3. Scope of the study
I found that secrets of an effective business letter are plentiful. They lie both in the style and the content of the letter, both abstractly and concretely . . . .
Due to the limitation of time; and I know that there have been so many assignments as well as books, articles saying about the form of business letter, therefore, it is referred to a little in this assignment. The focus is on the factors leading to the success of a business letter.
4. Method of the study.
Collecting and extracting articles from guide books and reference books, esp. in the Internet, concerning the studied issue.
5. Design of the study:
Part II. Development.
I. Theoretical Preliminaries.
1. Letter:
Letter is a kind of communication through which the writer and the recipient exchange information in the form of paper-writing. In the angle of receiving information, it is different from oral communication in the way that oral communicators receive response immediately; but that to a letter is not known until the answer is received. In terms of form, a letter is different form the other kinds of composition. It is simpler and more straight-forward. Beside, the feelings of the write are stated freely.
Objectives of writing a letter: People write letters anytime they want to exchange or send information to another person. Just a short message or a long confidence to a another one are called letter.
Kinds of letters, therefore, plentiful. Examples are: letter to relatives/friends/lovers, thanksgiving/invitation letter, letter of congratulation, letter of recommendation, business letter, etc.
2. Business letter and business letter writing.
Business letters are those used in business. The writers use them to exchange information with the recipients in order to do their business. Some types of business letters are: Circular letter, letters of complaint, letter of adjustment, letters of application for jobs, etc.
?A letter in business is what medicine is to a patient?. Good letters are ambassadors that traverse every nook and corner of commercial world. They constitute the biggest source of active liaison that is necessary for finding business.
?A good letter is a master key that opens looked doors. It opens markets, opens the way for your goods and services?.
Letter-writing is an essential part of business. A well crafted sales letter is the engine that pushes your product to success.
The letter is often evidence of an arrangement or a contract, and must therefore be written with care; even the shortest and most usual of letters may have this importance. The need for thought in writing is clear when you realise that in speaking ?either in face-to-face or by telephone ? the reaction to the spoken word can be seen or heard immediately, but that to a letter is not known until the answer is received.
Today the importance of the written word is increasing. The ?invention? of the paperless office does nothing to diminish the power of the written word. E-mail, the Internet and the World Wide Web have only added to the power of the written word.
Ever day I see the importance of writing in the business world. Many businesses lack the ability to generate internally a well-written letter. Not having this ability puts these businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Business writing has become more than a nice thing to have -it has become a business necessity.
II. Writing an Effective Business Letter.
As I said, this assignment gives more concentration on the ?secret? factors in writing successful business letters.
1. Steps to write effectively:
Writing an effective business letter is an important skill for every manager and business owner. Here are the main steps in creating an effective business letter.
1. Identifying your Aims:
Clearly establish what you want to achieve from the letter- whether it is to win back a dissatisfied customer or to reprimand an employee. Whatever the aim, create your letter from these goals.
2. Establishing the facts:
Make sure you have the relevant accurate facts available. For a late payer, this might include relevant invoices, complaint forms, talks with your sales department and any previous correspondence from the customer.
3. Knowing the recipient of the letter:
Write in the language of your recipient. Try to put yourself in the position of the recipient. Read it from his point of view. Is the letter clear or open to misinterpretation.
If you know the recipient, use this knowledge to phrase the letter to generate your desired response.
Having established your aims, collected the relevant facts with a conscious view of the recipient- write down the main points of your letter. But, before, you should consider the layout of your letter.
4. Deciding on the layout and format of the letter.
(See 2: ?The layout of a business letter? )
5. Concentrating on the language and style of the letter.
(See 3: ?A letter?s style?)
6. Starting writing
(Steps of writing are in Session 4: ?Writing?)
2. The layout of a business letter:
2.1. Format samples:
There are three main formats: blocked, semi-blocked and indented.
a) The Blocked Format: has all entries tight against the left -hand margin. Single spacing is used for the body of the letter within paragraphs and double spacing is used between paragraphs. Block format is easy to learn and easy to arrange. It is widely used for both business and personal letters, in fact, is very similar to a personal business letter.
Sample:
(2 inches)
(1) Letterhead
(1-2 lines)
(2) Date
(2-3 lines)
(3) Inside Address
(4) Attention
(1-2 lines)
(5) Salutation
(1-2 lines)
(6) Subject:
(1-2 lines)
(7) Body
(1 line)
(8)Complimen-tary Close
(3-4 lines)
(9) Signature
(4 lines)
(10) Reference
(11)Postscripts
Cacbon Copy
(1 line)
(12) Enclosure
(2 lines)
Cadrell?s
5 Hill Street
Madison, WI 53700
15 March 1993
Ms. Helen Jones, President
Jones, Jones, & Jones
123 International Lane
Boston, MA 01234
Attention: Head of Sales Dept.
Dear Ms. Jones,
Subject: New products of Cadrell?s
When you use the block form to write a business letter, all the information is typed flush left, with one-inch margins all around. First provide your own address and the date, then skip a line and provide the inside address of the party to whom the letter is addressed. Skip another line before the salutation. Then write the body of your letter as illustrated here, with no indentation at the beginning of paragraphs. Skip lines between paragraphs.
If you are using letterhead that already provides your address, begin with the date. After writing the body of the letter, type the closing, leave 3-4 blank lines, then type your name and title (if applicable), all flush left. Sign the letter in the blank space above your typed name. Now doesn’t that look professional?!
Sincerely,
John Smith
Administrative Assistant
MW/et
PS:
Cc : 5 to five departments
Enc: Catalogues.
b) The semi-blocked format sets the references and the date to the right margin for filing and retrieval purposes, with the remaining entries placed against the left margin.
5 Hill Street
Madison, WI 53700
15 March 1993
Ms. Helen Jones, President
Jones, Jones, & Jones
123 International Lane
Boston, MA 01234
Dear Ms. Jones:
This is the semi-blocked form. Its layout is nearly the same as the block one. However, the address and the date are written in the top-right corner. Skip one one to the date. In the body, indent the beginning of paragraphs.
One more thing to be considered, the Complimentary Close and Signature is centred-indented. It?s clear to see ?
Sincerely,
John Smith
Administrative Assistant
c) The indented format follows the same layout as either of the above, but indents each paragraph by five or six spaces.
Sample:
Your address
date
Inside address
Dear X:
If you are using the indented form, place your address and the date on the top right-hand side of the page. Type the inside address and salutation flush left. Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch. Skip lines between paragraphs.
Instead of placing the closing and signature lines flush left, type them at the right, even with the address and date above, as illustrated below. Now doesn’t that look professional?
Sincerely,
John Smith
v Margins
Most personal business letters and business letters use a 1 inch right, left, and bottom margins. The top margin is generally 2 or 2 1/4 inches depending on the exercise or letter. There are generally 6 lines (vertical) per inch.
2.2. Elements.
The 12 elements of a letter (and their arrangement) have been shown above. I only note some further information about some of them.
(2) Date: It should never been abbreviated (as January to Jan. 31). Open punctuation is common, otherwise, use comma (,).
(4) Attetion: appear right bellow the recipient?s address when the address is a company abd you don?t know the name of the reader.
(5) Salutation: Words used as a salutation are: Sir, Dear Sir, Sirs, Madam, Gentlement, Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms ___. They depend on your relationship with the recipient. Always try to personalise letter thus avoiding the dear sir/madam situation. (Further is in the next session).
A salutation is traditionally followed by a comma (,), but now many companies in American use colon(:) or no punctuation. (see 2.2. How to address a non-sexist business letter)
(6) Subject matter: optional, but its inclusion can help the recipient in dealing successfully with the aims of your letter. Normally the subject sentence is preceded with the word ?Re:?/?Subject:?. It should be placed one line below the greeting.
(7) Body: It should be divided into paragraphs. Each subject should be dealt within a separate one.
The first paragraph should introduce the subject matter (reason for writing); it could be very short.
The second paragraph (or paragraphs) explains the exact situation and provides details that support the reason for writing. Here might go dates, names, and facts like cost and times. You will be asking the company to take some action in the last paragraph, and this middle paragraph (or these middle paragraphs) should provide the necessary evidence to persuade the company to take the action you request.
The final paragraph tells the company what action you would like it to take. If you wrote a letter of complaint, you’ll ask for repair or replacement of the offending item. If it is a letter of praise, you’ll ask them to count you among their most loyal customers–or something like that. This last paragraph should be very clear and precise.
Marginate paragraphs to the left, leave a blank line in a single spaced letter to indicate a new paragraph
(8) Signature: The signature should be clear and legible-showing you are interested in the letter and consequently the recipient.
(12) Enclosures: indicates that something other than the letter is included in the envelope. If have, put ‘Enclosure’, “Enclosures” or ?Enc?, or’ Encs’ before the attachment, two lines below the last entry.
2.3. How to address a non-sexist business letter.
Let us look at the standard opening phrase of a standard business letter:
Dear Sir,
This is clearly sexist as it precludes the possibility that a woman is reading the letter. We can try to fix this, however, by writing:
Dear Sir/Madam,
This was suggested in a recent posting in a few of the gender-issue related news groups. However, someone pointed out that by putting the masculine title before the feminine one, unacceptable dominance was demonstrated, making this non-PC. So, let?s consider:
Dear Madam/Sir,
This is no good since we’re showing dominance in the other direction. Of course, since Men are Oppressors and Women are Oppressees, which may not be so bad. But it’s not really PC, is it? Thus, another way:
Dear Sir
Madam,
That solves the problem of who goes first. Of course, the Sir is on top now, which is completely unacceptable. Missionary style het-sexist imagery abounds. It?s bad, probably worse than the original. Reverse it:
Dear Madam
Sir,
Making women do all the work is sexist. Besides, there is still one on top of the other showing dominance. We may not sure who’s doing what, but somebody is being oppressed here.
Dear MadSiram,
What about putting the Sir inside the Madam – neither is going first and neither is above the other one? This is so unacceptable. The Sir has inserted himself inside the Madam! Practically splitting her in two with himself. A man writing a letter addressed like this to a woman is obviously making an (unwanted) sexual advance.
Dear SMadamir,
Now we put the Madam inside the Sir. Oh, now the Sir has enveloped the Madam! Horrors, she has lost her identity, her sense of self! This is imprisonment! (Oh, how could I have even thought of this one?)
Thus, there’s only one answer left:
To Whom it May Concern
There. Simple, no reference to sex or sexuality, no problems. Not very friendly, but then again unwanted intimacy is a sin. And getting rid of friendliness is a small price to pay to make sure that absolutely no-one is ever, ever offended.
The above is just what I have made up. In fact, Dear Sir/Madam is commonly used , becomes even formulaic when you are not sure about the recipient; or uses Dear + Job Tittle (Personnel Director)
If you know the recipient is male or female, the salutation must be Dear Sir (for man), Dear Madam (for woman).
In the case that you write to a person you have close relationship, Dear + Surname is better.
Sir: This has become very formal nowadays and is not generally used except by government officers.
Dear Sir: By far the most accepted form. However this is used only when a relationship between the correspondences already exists.
Dear Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms: use if the writer knows the recipient well, and wants to give a personal (friendly)( touch rather than being formal as usual. Very important: use Ms for women unless asked to use Mrs or Miss.
3. A letter’s style:
Previously we created the main points of our letter, now we must transform this into a final version. To do this, 3 main considerations are necessary.
3.1. Language
a) Manner:
Always try to personalise your letters; try to be civil and friendly even if the subject matter is stern and sensitive. Give the impression to the recipient that some effort and thought has gone into the letter.
b) Accuracy:
Once the final version of the letter has been created, polish it off with a final spelling and punctuation check.
Open Punctuation: When no punctuation follows the opening (salutation or greeting) or the complimentary close of a letter (except one that may end in an abbreviation), open punctuation has been used. Open punctuation is compatible with block format because both save time and reduce errors.
c) Language:
q Simple, direct, and concise language will be the most easily understood by reader, and therefore is most appropriate.
Clarity of communication is the primary goal. Don’t use technical jargon if the recipient is unlikely to understand it. Short sentences are less likely to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Be precise; don’t ramble; avoid abbreviation (especially date). Check each sentence to see if it is relevant. Does it add to the point ?
This is not to say that all the words and expressions should be simple or monosyllabic. A limited vocabulary always makes dull reading. But current cliches, such as at this moment in time, and pompous expressions, or any words which are unlikely to be understood should be avoided.