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BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE

 Structure of a business letter

- Four considerations of a business letter

The four areas you must take into consideration for each business letter are listed below. If you do not consider each one of them, your letter will be ineffective.

1. Subject                                                               3. Purpose

2. Audience                                                           4. Style/Organization

-Organization

The basic organization for the body of a business letter can be as follows.

Part 1: State your purpose.

Part 2: Explain what you want to happen or explain the information you have.

Part 3: Request a dated action, conclude or thank the reader for his response.

Styles

Style is how you write the letter. Business letter used to be written in what might be called “businesses”, a format, stiff language. The SEVEN “C” of style will make your  letter more effective.

  1. Conversational                                                 5. Concrete
  2. Clarity/ Clear                                                    6. Constructive
  3. Concise                                                              7. Correct
  4. Complete

Parts of a business letter

  1. Letterhead or Heading
  2. Date
  3. File number (optional)
  4. Confidential (optional)
  5. Inside address
  6. Attention line (optional)
  7. Salutation
  8. Subject line (optional)
  9. Body of the letter
  10. Complimentary close
  11. Signature
  12. Added information (optional)
  13. Postscript (optional)
  14. Mailing instruction (optional)

Format of a business letter

Business letter formats have changed over the year. If you went to school prior to the 1970s, you probably learned one basic form of business letter now called the Modified Semi-Block. It was the bone of every beginning typist because of its strict rules concerning spacing. Luckily, the movement in business has been to simplify and provide choices. Now you have a choice of six different forms, some extremely simple, others more complex. This chapter will review the various forms. The six forms of business letters most commonly used are:

  1. Block
  2. Modified Block
  3. Modified Semi-Block
  4. Simplified
  5. Hanging Indented
  6. Memo