II Writing business letters Business letter format and conventions.

Notice the following points:

Writer’s address or company letterhead: at the top or in the top right-hand corner. The writer’s name is not at the top of the letter.

Reader’s name, position and address: on the left. If you are writing to another country, write the country in the address.

Date: on the right. Various forms of the date are possible.

Opening salutation: Use the name of the reader if you know it, without the initial. If you do not, write Dear Sirs to a company, Dear Sir to a man, Dear Madam to a woman or Dear Sir or Madam if you don’t know the sex of the reader.

Body of the letter: Start a new paragraph for each new idea or subject. Leave a line space between each paragraph. Do not break words at the end of a line.

Closing salutation: Yours faithfully if you do not know the reader’s name, Yours sincerely if you do. (US Yours truly or Sincerely yours).

Signature:

Writer’s name and title (and position in the company, if appropriate). A man uses the title Mr.

The title Mrs shows that a woman is married; Miss shows that she is unmarried; Ms shows only that she is a woman.

Punctuation: in modern business letters punctuation is not used in the headings and endings of a letter. Normal punctuation is used in the body of the letter.

Here is an example of a standard letter.

Hardy Heyward 7 Nogin Road Shipsam Northshire KT3 49P 18 April 2011 Dear Mr. Loelgen, It was good to meet you at the seminar in Paris. I am going to be in Amsterdam in June and I would like to arrange a meeting with as you suggested. We have many new products that I am sure will interest you. Could you let me know if you are available on June 5th or 6th? I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours sincerely, Isabel Hardy Partner

Please pay special attention to the business letter terminology in the below letter.

30 Empire Drive Manchester M6 2PQ Mr. Graham Davis Assistant Manager Transworld Freight plc 74Dockside Vanchester M15 7BJ Dear Mr. Davis I saw your advertisement for an Export Manager in the Daily Herald of 7 March and I would like to apply for the position. I would be grateful if you could send me an application form and further information about the salary and working conditions. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Yours sincerely Geoffrey Andrews

Read the instructions and write a letter (60-90 words). Begin it with a salutation and end politely.

You are a senior manager in the Human Resources Department of a big company. Two days ago, you interviewed candidates applied for the position of a sales manager. Write a letter to the successful candidate. Give the name of the position, the starting day, the salary and number of days of annual leave. Add any other information that will be useful.

You may need the following phrases: We are pleased to inform you; you have been successful in your application for the position…; we would like you to start…; your starting salary will be…; you can take … days’ annual leave; a copy of the contract; confirm the acceptance of the offer.

Now the task for you: read this letter of complaint from a customer and write a reply of 50-60 words to your customer.

Dear Sir or Madam!

This morning we received a consignment of printers from you (Order SN206). On unpacking the boxes, we noticed that all the printers were damaged.

Could you please arrange to send a replacement order as soon as possible and arrange to collect the damaged goods? Hopefully, we will not have to pay for this.

Yours faithfully

Ms. Janine Duval

While replying keep to the layout offered:

• Thanking her for her letter.

• Apologizing for the problem.

• Agreeing to replace the damaged goods today.

• Offering to collect the damaged goods, at no extra cost.

E-mail

Discus or think about these questions

1. About how many emails do you send every day?

2. Who do you send them to?

3. What do you like about emails?

4. What don’t you like about them?

E-mails can have a formal business style or a very informal style, similar to spoken English.

Here is an example of an informal letter.

The informal style is most suitable for e-mails within your company and for people whom you know well. The greeting is often Hi, Hello or even How are you? Cheers is a common ending, or sometimes the ending is omitted. Sometimes the writer won’t use capital letters. The style is much closer to spoken than to written English.

To: tony. randall@pricerise.aus Subject: Goodbye party! Hi Tony