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Archive for the ‘Business Letter’ Category

‘Grammar’ is one of the most problematic issues in writing and Business Letter Writing Software was developed in order to help us better deal with it. Speaking a language is considered less formal and easier than writing; thus it requires us to keep our writing correct and professional. Want to learn how technology can easily help you on improving your writing skills? Read the following article.

Introduction

Innovative word processing solutions such as the following Business Letter Writing Software suggest new ways on improving our writing, our writing skills, and our writing style. Most of these solutions check your writing against a massive database that contains ‘proper writing versions’ of millions of sentences and phrases. In most cases these solutions enables us to do the following: grammar check, misspelling and typos correction, and suggesting proper punctuation.

Advantages

Going down to the bottom line we notice the following advantages:

* Helping us to avoid embarrassing grammar mistakes.

* Helping people who use writing as their main working tool whether at home or in the office.

* Improving our business communication skills with partners and customers.

* Enriching our English vocabulary.

* Significantly enhancing the capabilities of our existing text editors.

There are probably many other benefits that are not covered here, as this important webmarketing technique constantly changes, bringing us new ideas and additional solutions that help us on improving our English writing.

Quick summary

One of the great opportunities provided by this sophisticated Business Letter Writing Software is improving our writing style, making it correct, fluent, and impressive. Grammar processing technology is quite complex, but fortunately latest developments in this field make it transparent for the end users. We can only expect this important webmarketing technique to further develop itself, simply because writing is one of the most important tools that help us fulfill our daily assignments.

In learning how to write a business letter, you need to know and understand the eight parts that should be included in any business letter. Here they are:

The return address: This is the writer’s address. If you are writing on behalf of a company or organtion, this information will be part of its printed letterhead. If you are writing a business letter on your own behalf, you must type in this information, usually centred at the top of the page.

The date: It usually goes at the left margin, several lines below the last line of the return address. Always put in the date, as it is important to the history of correspondence on this topic.

The inside address: This is the name and address of the person to whom you are writing. Beginning two lines below the date, it includes first and last name, company name, street address, city, province or state, postal or zip code. If the person is in another country, include the country in the last line. Although some writers omit the title (such as Mr., Mrs., Ms or Dr.), it is still considered polite to include this.

The salutation: Two lines below the last line of the inside address, begin your letter with the salutation, or Dear… line. When you know the recipient very well, it’s now considered acceptable to address him or her by first name. Otherwise, write Dear Mr. Ross or Dear Ms Roberts; when in doubt err on the side of formality and use the last name. In North America, punctuation after the salutation is a colon, while U.K. writers generally use the comma. Both are considered correct.

The Body: This is the content, or the message of the letter. I’ll reserve detailed discussion of the body content for another article, but for maximum impact, it should be clear, concise and correct.

The complimentary close: This comes two lines after the last line of the letter, and might be yours sincerely, sincerely, yours truly, yours faithfully or even regards.

The signature: Leave four to six blank lines after the complimentary close for the writer’s handwritten signature.

The name and title of the writer: Beneath the handwritten signature is the typed name of the writer. Sometimes the person’s title is included in a separate line, but this is optional.

In learning how to write a business letter, you should become familiar with these parts and always use them, because correct formatting of your business letter makes it easier to read and also adds to your credibility.

The essentials which go to make up a good business letter may be divided into two classes – mechanical make-up, and contents. Before a letter can come into existence the mechanical side must be attended to. The subject matter may be pertinent and well composed and yet the letter itself be so arranged typo-graphically and so disposed on the page that the unity of the whole is lost.

The display as a whole should balance. Before the stenographer starts the address, calculation should be made as to how many lines the letter will run and as to how it should be disposed on the page. The body of the letter should neither be crowded near the top nor bottom of the sheet, but should be so placed that, viewed in connection with the letter head, it presents a well balanced and artistic effect.

This effect is often underrated, being in fact passed by without a thought by the average stenographer, and the ordinary business man is so busy seeing that his dictation is correctly transcribed that he gives little thought to this essential. Harmony of color effect should be observed. A yellow paper bearing the firm announcement in blue, the letter in green and signed with purple ink is not to be recommended.

Letters blurred in copying and wet from the press or otherwise violating the rule of neatness cannot help but produce an unfavorable impression. Orthography and capitalization, particularly of proper names, should be exact and uniform.

A misspelled word in the body of a letter, particularly if a mere transposition of letters in typewriting, may occasionally slip in and do no particular damage, but the misspelling of the name of the party addressed may lose an order, and cannot help but militate against the general effect of the letter. Neatness uncompromising neatness – that should be the first effect of a letter, giving the idea that the firm putting out the writing is thorough master of the minor (as well as the major) details of its business.

Contents

In letter-writing, contents may be divided into subject matter and expression. The subject matter is, broadly speaking, what the writer says. This should coincide with two other things:

(1) what the writer wants to say, and

(2) what the one addressed wants to know.

Something which is the a b c of life and a mere matter of routine to the writer in a certain line may be abstruse and complicated to a non-technical reader. To avoid an offensive simplicity of language on the one hand and excessive technicality on the other is one of the tests of a good business correspondent. There is a tendency to slight simple questions asked by different inquirers day after day, which must be avoided by putting oneself in the place of the one asking the question, and giving the knowledge for which he is looking.

One of the most, if not the most, important essentials of a good business letter lies in correct expression. The one thing which causes more failures in business correspondence than any other, is the incorporation of personal peculiarities in a letter. There may be called to mind, in fact, more than one established business backed by ample capital, having a broad field and financed by capable and conservative business men, that is at the mercy of a poor correspondent. This is ably expressed by Forrest Crissy, who says:

“So apparent must be the importance of this branch (tact and tone in business letters) of business systematization, that scarcely a word of argument is needed to enforce its necessity. Very recently a large whole-sale merchant said to me:

‘I have recently been obliged to discharge the head of my credit department – my confidential man. He is honest, conservative and shrewd, but recently I have been awakened to the fact that his incapacity to write a letter which does not leave a sting, a chill, or at least a sense of lofty indifference, is hurting my business more than would some downright reckless blunders. When he writes a letter granting a good customer a larger line of credit he gives it a twist that somehow makes that customer wish he hadn’t asked for credit and thus placed himself under added obligations. And if he refuses to meet the request for such a favor the refusal is so put that it seems a studied effort to conceal a strong unwillingness to give any credit at all.

Yet this man has always considered him-self an adept in letter-writing – and for a time he completely hypnotized me into that view. But at last the steady withdrawal of patronage and the occasional out-spoken retorts which his letters provoked forced upon me a recognition of the real condition of affairs. Then I went out after a man who could write a business letter that had just the right ring to it; that was neither so sloppy that it sounded hypocritical or so stiff and stilted that there was no tone of good hearty business friendliness in it.

I have found him. He comes high, but the difference in results is remarkable. Of course, there are other things required than this form of literary ability – that’s what you’d call it. He must have business experience, business judgment and all the other cardinal business virtues; but the addition of this peculiar capacity to write business letters that hit the mark is a rare gift and makes him a star man.’ “

Simplicity and clearness as an element of expression cannot be rated too highly. The saying of a thing in the plain language of the common people, not only adds to the style and dignity of a letter, but has the most vital element of being understandable. As Chas. R. Weirs says, “Eloquence, either real or imaginary, has no place in a business letter.”

Whatever else may be neglected in writing, courtesy should not be slighted. A man may be told nearly anything face to face – it is qualified by the bearing, tone of voice, manner and earnestness of the speaker. A sentence may be given an entirely different meaning by a tone or gesture – it may even be diplomatically changed after partly spoken, to make it conform to the unconscious demand of the listener, and most of all spoken speech is transient. What is written, on the other hand, is put down in black and white to stay. The record is permanent. It can be offered in evidence, can be dug up years afterwards from a musty file, and discourteously written can queer, not only an immediate sale, but the sales of a decade.

Length

Letters often tend to verbosity from the fact that they are dictated instead of written. Were a man to write his letters himself with pen and ink he would study brevity and conciseness of expression, but having letters written for him, he will dictate more than he would write. Brevity is not always desirable. Some people – particularly those receiving few letters – like to receive lengthy correspondence. Getting few letters, they wish those long and newsy.

A letter is an event to some patrons and cannot be too long for a careful perusal. In this class of letters the party ad-dressed may be often appealed to in conversational style; as, “Judge of the goods yourself, Mr. Brown,” “We ask you, Mr. Smith, if we have not treated you fairly?” etc. At the other extreme is the business man, particularly the city business man. To him, brevity to the point of curtness is always welcome. As someone has alliteratively said, the formula for a business letter to a busy man is: Sir: Say it. Stop!

Judging the Other Man’s Letter.

One of the pre-requisites of a good correspondent is the ability, inherent or acquired to judge the general character and status of the writer by means of his letters. Until the last few years the letter-head of a firm was a considerable guide to the standing of the company putting It out, but good printing is now much more common and many one-horse concerns put out conservative, well-gotten-up stationery.

Ability to recognize the efforts of an amateur or schoolboy inquiring for a catalog with no intention of buying and to treat the writer accordingly, call for almost occult powers. The president of one of the large machinery companies putting out a cement mixer selling at $850.00, relates that one of the company travelers visited Detroit in response to an apparently good lead and found a twelve-year-old boy wanted a dozen cement mixers “to go into the mail-order business with.”

Some companies putting out expensive catalogs write a letter asking a doubtful inquirer to fill out an information blank before sending a catalog. The correct interpretation of the personality of a writer means the saving of dollars of expenditure as well as the ability to write him correctly. In a fire insurance concern employing hundreds of agents it would be easy for a manager to inform himself through his special agents as to each agent’s nationality, education, experience in the business, etc., and vary his correspondence accordingly, while a mail order house might have no means of judging a man but by his bare letter.

Form Letters

A form letter is one of a series of letters, to be sent on similar occasions. Such letters are usually in imitation typewriting with blanks left for the name of the party addressed, and when carefully executed are a close imitation of a typewritten letter. Form letters vary from those not to be distinguished from actual typewriting, to the stock letters of collection agencies, in which no attempt is made to imitate the machine. Some writers use a number of short forms or inserts which they use in dictating to avoid a repetition of dictation.

Letters of Recommendation

The promiscuous writing of letters of recommendation has done much to cheapen the effect of recommends. Many firms refuse such letters entirely. Perhaps the best plan is to have an employee, when leaving, use his former employer’s name as a reference.