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Writing Business Letters - Tutorial 3: Writing a Quality Letter

If you've read Tutorials one and two you know how to format a letter and how to use the various parts. But that's not all of it. You now need to know how to construct the paragraphs that form the opening sentence, the body and the action ending.

By the end of this short tutorial, you'll be ready to start creating top business letters following a simple formula. Here goes ...

Why Do We Write Letters?

Is this a dumb question? No way Jose! Let's do some revision to get us into a communication mindset before we jump head first into this tutorial. It will help us make sense of it. So, why do we write letters? To:

1. Ask someone
2. Tell someone
3. Get something done (by asking and telling)

That's it. In doing these things there are some different communication styles we follow to get the most out of our communication. For example, the most common letter types are:

1. Request letters; requests for information, purchase orders, or other action
2. No letters; telling someone 'no' requires tact and thoughfullness
3. Sales letters; you've seen thousands of these
4. Applications; you've probably submitted a few job or other applications
5. Complaint; hopefully you don't write too many of these!
6. Condolence; these are difficult to write
7. Information letters and cover letters; these tell someone something and are sometimes like sales letters

Common to ALL Letters

Every letter you write should have an opening sentence or paragraph that states why you are writing (but don't say, "I'm writing to say ...." as your recipient knows you have written), a body of one or more paragraphs where you expand on the reasons why you are writing, and usually (but not always), an action ending.

The opening sentence or paragraph is required so your recipient knows immediately why you have written. The subject line, if appropriately created, will also help. When your Mother receives a letter from you she knows you are writing because you love her ... or perhaps want a loan (just kidding) and usually she is delighted to hear from you. The business people with whom you correspond, however, receive hundreds or thousands of letters and may never have heard of you or your firm before; if you are a client, they may not recall having done business with you and can't guess what you could possibly want. So tell them in one of a variety of ways:

"Please consider my application for ...." "I saw your advertisement for widgets in the Sunday Trader and ...." "I was sorry to learn that ...." "I was terribly disappointed when I .... "Your letter of 10th October about widgets arrived and ...."

Get the drift? State up front what it is you want. That way, the first person reading the letter can decide whether he/she or someone else needs to deal with it without reading the whole letter. It helps speed the process so you may get a reply sooner.

If you are really on the ball, you will create for yourself a list of standard opening sentences you can use for different letters without having to rewrite them every time. You could place these in your letter template and simply delete the ones you don't want, or copy and paste from somewhere else. It saves time and reinventing every time you write.

In the body of the letter, expand what you are writing about. Be Concise, Complete and Correct ... the Three Cs. Don't waffle. Use short sentences and get to the point. The best approach is to structure your letter around chronological order, a process, an event, or some other logical pattern. For example, a person complaining about a telephone bill might write a body like this:

"My family was on holidays between 3 March and 3 June. During that time, our house was unoccupied and nobody had access to, or permission to use, our telephone. As we had not made any telephone calls during this period, I was astonished to receive your bill showing $129.75 owing."

It takes a little practice to become artful at letter writing. However, if you know the principles, it's much easier. If you have difficulty deciding how to craft your letter, try using an outlining method. Jot down the key points you want to make, like this:

Phone bill too high - was on holidays most of the billing period - How come my bill was $129? - Is this a mistake? - Is there another reason? - Ask for new, adjusted bill

Shuffle them around until they are in a logical order and then write a sentence for each.

Last, but not least, let's look at action endings. Most times when you write you want something to happen. People often forget to use an action ending ... ask for what you want to happen in the last paragraph. These examples demonstrate this point:

"As soon as I receive your completed application, I will be able to consider your request." "Please send your cheque or money order for $123 as soon as possible." "Please call me if you need further information." "Please accept my sincere apologies." "Unless you provide me with a copy of your birth certificate we will not be able to ...."

Remember, this is the last thing your readers read. It needs to tell them what you want and what they need to do. As with the opening sentences template, you can write a list of standard action endings for use with various letters.

Conclusion

I hope this short series helps you produce top quality letters that make you and your organisation look highly professional. Because of the numerous requests I receive to help with letters, I may produce an ebook about good business communication in future as time permits. Watch this space.

And last of all, don't take any notice of those purists who say that a paragraph cannot have only one sentence. What is the point of writing a two or three sentence paragraph if it isn't needed? Just tell them Robin has changed the rules and enjoy your letter writing.

Copyright 2005 Robin Henry

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