How to write a formal letter
With the advent of email, it is becoming less and less common to write letters, but the few letters that you will write will probably be very important ones, such as covering letters for job applications, covering letters for questionnaires or surveys which are part of your research, or letters of complaint to your bank/firm/company manager. It is very important, therefore, that your letters have the desired effect on the reader. In order to achieve this, they should be:
- in the correct format
- short and to the point
- relevant
- free of any grammatical or spelling mistakes
- polite, even if you’re complaining
- well presented
Format
There are certain conventions that your reader will expect you to follow; if you don’t, you will create a bad impression.Here is a letter in standard format. Refer to the notes afterwards for explanation.
42, Greyhound Road
Perry Barr
Birmingham
B42 6HJ
Mr. E. Scrooge
The Manager
Barclay’s Bank Ltd
113 Mammon Street
Andover
HU4 9ET
###############################################
Yours sincerely
Valiant CMSian
If you are replying to a letter it can be a good idea to note how that letter has been formatted and expressed.
- Your address, but not your name, usually goes in the top right hand corner. You would not usually include your telephone number or email address here, but this would be permissible.
- The name and address of the person you’re writing to goes below this, on the left. If you don’t have a specific name, always at least try to put some sort of title. You should always, however, address the letter to a particular person if at all possible.
- The position of the date is more flexible. It can go on the left or the right, usually below the addressee details. The format of the date is also flexible; it could be written 5 April 2003, 5th April 2003, 5/4/03 or 05/04/03. Avoid putting the day and month the other way round.
- The salutation at the beginning of the letter depends on whether or not you have the name of the person.
If you do, write Dear Mr. Ochs, Dear Mrs. Baez, Dear Miss Perhacs, or, if you don’t know the marital status of a woman, or if she has written this, Dear Ms. Bunyan. It is possible to write Dear Robert Fripp or Dear Alison Statton, but many people consider this awkward. If the person has a specific title, use this: Dear Dr. Hammill.
If you don’t know the name of the person, you would traditionally write Dear Sir. This
is clearly somewhat sexist, so many people prefer Dear Sir/Madam or Dear Sir or Madam.
The ending of the letter depends on how you have started: see below.
- It is common now to put the subject of the letter directly below the salutation. This would be in bold or underlined. The purpose is to give the reader an idea of what the letter is about before reading it, and to be able to pass it on to a more appropriate person if necessary.
If you are replying to a letter which had a reference (or ref.) on it, you should repeat this on your letter, probably on the same line as the date, but on the other side of the page. Write Your ref: xxxxxxxxx - The content of your letter should be as short as possible, divided into short, clear paragraphs.
- It is common to end your letter with a phrase such as I look forward to hearing from you. It’s OK to do this, but it’s a bit meaningless.
- To end the letter, you would normally write Yours sincerely if you have started the letter with the name of the person, or Yours faithfully if you have started with something like Dear Sir.
- Sign you name directly below this and then print it below the signature.
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