Rogers - Write of Way | Taking Care of Business |

| Business Letters |

It's not just people studying business administration who have to know about business writing. Job seekers write letters applying for jobs, and they enclose a résumé. Sometimes you may be asked to write a letter of recommendation for a friend. You write letters—you may e-mail many of them-to order a college calendar, to describe how the personal radio you are returning is malfunctioning, to ask how to use a software package, or to resign from the riding association of a political party.

You may conduct so much of your personal business over the telephone that you wonder if you need to write well. It's true that people often phone when, in the past, they would have written. You still need the ability to write effective business letters, though, for a few reasons. First, as more and more organizations downsize their workforce and replace receptionists with electronic voice-mail systems, it can be quicker to fax or e-mail than wait through a maze of automated telephone attendant messages. Second, your intelligence is judged by the calibre of your electronic correspondence-e-mail or faxes-just as commonly as it is judged by your snail mail.

Although you can conduct much of your business by telephone, some organizations will accept only written submissions. If you want to complain to the press council about a newspaper with biased news reporting, the council will want you to write your complaint. And this is true of many organizations, including the Better Business Bureau and provincial ministries of consumer and commercial relations.

Even when you can communicate by phone, it is often more effective to write. A thoughtful letter to your local Member of Parliament is more likely to get a considered response.

Following the COSA formula can help you get results from all your business correspondence. You may use your computer to word process a message that you fax or e-mail rather than send it by Canada Post, but—however you send it—your writing will be better received if you create informative content, organize it effectively, express it in standard written Canadian English, and format it with an attractive appearance.

Creating the Content of a Business Letter

People don't write business letters unless they want something. To create the content of your business letter, you need to decide what you want. Most business letters fall into one of three categories:

complaints,
requests, or
offers.

You might write the Better Business Bureau to complain about a poor service, such as a botched job of refinishing your kitchen floor.

A request can be as simple as a brief letter to ask the bank to begin to deduct your student loan payment from a different account or as complex as a carefully crafted letter that asks an employer to hire you. Sometimes you may write a business letter that is a mix of these types. To create the content of an effective business letter, follow these steps:

Decide what you want your reader to do

Daydream, muse, or freewrite to come to a clear understanding of the action you want the reader of the letter to carry out for you.

Jot notes about your complaint, request or offer

Note the details that will lead your reader to take the action you recommend. For a complaint, provide a description detailed enough that your reader can only conclude that your concern is legitimate. Marshal the reasons for why the reader should grant your request. Describe your offer in enough detail that your readers feel they can make an informed decision.

Outline your points in a convincing, logical fashion

Look over the notes you've made, and use numerals to order your information to best express your message.

Analyze your audience

Review your message. Did you provide enough background? Will your reader understand you? Set a tone that conveys respect for your reader. Effective business correspondence has a you-emphasis: Use the second-person pronoun you to make your readers feel that you are concerned about what you can do for them. Contrast these two ways to convey the same information:

Emphasis on the Writer:
I will send you our new catalogue soon so that we can receive an order before the Christmas rush.

Emphasis on the Reader:
You will soon receive our new catalogue so you can order early and beat the Christmas rush.

In the second example, the writer has used you-emphasis to show that the reader is a valued customer. When you write with a you-emphasis, you signal that you are putting the needs of the reader first.

Let's follow a student as she composes the content of a business letter that is both a complaint and a request. The letter takes a direct approach, a straightforward approach often recommended for business letters. You can study the indirect approach (which tries to tactfully broach unpopular or unwelcome topics) in more advanced books about business correspondence. Most lay people will find the direct approach-candid and straightforward-works for their personal business and volunteer activities.

Christine Guthridge was concerned about the car drivers who sped down her residential street. She mused that they were going too fast to stop and could hurt-or kill-one of her children who might inadvertently step on the roadway. She jotted some notes about the problem and her proposed solution: The city should install a stop sign. Then she roughly outlined her argument. She had created her content; now she had to organize her message so that she could make a powerful impact on her audience.

Organizing a Business Letter

A brief essay is organized into an introduction, a body of support paragraphs, and a conclusion. A similar pattern of organization works for a business letter, too, although business text writers use the terms introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and closing paragraph. Follow these steps to create effective organization:

In the introductory paragraph, state-briefly-your main point.

Communications expert Ron Blicq says you can usually identify your main point by identifying your reader and then completing the sentence " I want to tell you that.…" Your sentence completion becomes the first sentence of your introductory paragraph.

Try it. Imagine you're writing an invitation to select customers to attend a midnight madness furniture sale. You want them to attend because you make more money if more customers buy from you. You begin your message with the sentence completion "I would like to invite you to a spectacular sale." Then you remember that your message will be more powerful with an emphasis on the reader: "Next Friday night you can buy the furniture of your dreams at low prices you've never even dreamed of."

Show that you know your reader's time is valuable by getting right to the point. State that point succinctly, but be sure to be polite, too. Summarize what you most want to tell your reader(s).

In the body paragraphs of the letter, provide the details that will inform your reader of the specifics of your complaint, the precise nature of or reasons for your request, or the details that should convince your reader to accept your offer.

In letter writing, you often get more when you give more. A simple request for a college calendar requires only a brief letter. But when you show more than the usual amount of interest, sometimes the sender goes to the trouble to include a college newspaper or a brochure of local attractions. You end up much more informed about the community you are considering.

In the closing paragraph, restate what you want the reader to do.

Make sure that the reader knows precisely what you want done, how to resolve your complaint, how to grant your request, how to accept your offer, and when.

In a business letter, aim to present yourself as a reasonable person making a very reasonable proposal. Be specific about what your reader must do to make you happy. You may try here, as you did for brief essays, to leave your reader with a last thought.

Read through Christine Guthridge's letter (figure 1). Notice the way she follows the pattern of beginning the introductory paragraph by briefly stating her main point. Note the way she provides, in the body paragraphs, the supporting detail to make the reader see the danger to the children of this street without a stop sign. Consider how she briefly re-states in the closing paragraph what she wants the reader to do and suggests a reasonable deadline.

Figure 1: Sample Business Letter

Creating a Business Letter with an Effective Appearance

Glance at figure 2, "Annotated Business Letter," as you read through this discussion. Christine has used the full-block style to format her letter. This style—all text begins at the left margin and the paragraphs are not indented—is easy to handwrite or key into word processing software.

Figure 2: Annotated Business Letter

Consider the spacing of a full-block business letter. The left, right, and bottom margins are set at 2.5 cm., but the top margin is larger, about 5 cm. All text is aligned with the left margin. The writer leaves the right margin ragged, unjustified. The text is single-spaced, but there's a blank line between each element of the letter. Are the paragraphs indented? No, the author uses blank lines to separate paragraphs.

Consider the parts or elements of a business letter. Notice that the first address indicated is the sender's. What do you read next? The dateline shows the date the letter was composed. Some style manuals suggest that the dateline immediately follow the sender's address-with no blank line-but other guides suggest that writers make the date stand out by preceding and following it with a blank line. I think the date is so important that it is a good idea to clearly designate it as a distinctive element by separating it from the sender's address.

It is easy to use word processing software to create personal (or business) letterhead. Most writers choose a graphic from the selection provided by the software. Others scan a photo or line art and bring this graphics file into a letterhead file. The letterhead file will also indicate the distinctive font and size of print of the sender's name and address information. You can easily copy this file and paste it into a new word-processing file each time you begin to write another letter. Then all you have to do is key in the rest of the document. The date line stands alone just under your letterhead, which is placed at the top of the page (under the 2.5 centimetre margin).

What element of a business letter appears next? This is the inside address, the name and address of the recipient of your letter. Look for a moment at the punctuation at the end of the lines of the sender's address and the inside address. What do you notice? There is no punctuation at the end of these lines. Full-block format does not use commas to separate the elements of the addresses. Is the punctuation omitted between the address elements within the lines of the addresses? No. Note the comma between the city and province. As usual, though, there is no comma between the province or state and the postal or zip code. Key two spaces before the postal code.

Look at the next element, the salutation. Notice that it does have punctuation at the end of the element. Some style manuals suggest omitting that comma (for an informal letter) or colon (formal letter). I think that at this time, you will more often make a more favourable impression on most readers if you place a comma or colon at the end the salutation and of the complimentary close: Older, educated readers still expect it.

The introductory, body, and closing paragraphs follow after the complimentary close ("Sincerely" in Christine's letter), notice the blank line or two for the writer's signature. What follows the signature? The signature block concludes with the sender's name, typed. The typed name is omitted if the sender's name appears in the letterhead. If Christine wrote on behalf of an organization, she would insert two lines. The first would indicate the title of her organization, and this would be typed in block capitals a double-space below the close. The second addition would be a line indicating her title in the group (e.g., President), and this would be typed immediately below the typed name. The closing would look like this:

Sincerely,
AQUEDUCT STREET RESIDENTS COUNCIL

(Ms.) Christine Guthridge
President
dbr

Enclosure

Copy to Councillor Diane Grenier

If someone had typed the letter for Ms. Guthridge, the keyboarder's initials (called the reference initials and usually typed in lower case) would be placed a double-space below the signature block (dbr in the example).

If Christine sent a copy to a local city councillor, she would indicate this by the line Copy to Councillor Diane Grenier.

What is the very last word in Christine Guthridge's letter (figure 2)? It's the enclosure notation. This reminds the reader that there is additional material, and it also shows this information on the copy that writers file for their own records.

If the letter had continued onto another page, Christine could have created a second-page heading. In a full-block style, this can be done easily by beginning the subsequent pages(s) with the recipient's name, the date of the letter, and the page number, all aligned with the left margin, as illustrated here:

Mr. Don Cook, November 4, 2002, page 2.

Use your word processor's header tool, and suppress the header for the first page.

After you spell check your text, you have one last task: You must address your envelope. As Canada Post uses more sophisticated electronic equipment to sort the mail, writers can ensure the shortest delivery time by following the Canadian addressing standard, since this is designed to make your envelope easy for the machines to sort (Canada Post).

The addressing standards look very foreign to letter writers taught older methods of addressing mail. Here is an example of the "optimum" format for the envelope for Christine Guthridge's letter:

Figure 3: Envelope addressed in Canada Post Optimum Style

take a close look at these addressing
standards. Notice that both the s addresses are typed in block capitals (all
uppercase). What punctuation is used? s a list of the address elements,
which are usually ordered from the smallest unit to the largest:

Name and title of letter recipient
Name of department
Name of recipient's organization
Street address or postal box number
City, abbreviation for province or state, and postal or zip code. Leave two blank spaces before the postal code.
If you are sending the letter outside Canada, start a new line and put the name of the country of your recipient.

This introduction to business letter writing is brief, but there's enough information here to help you write effective business letters. Try Activity 1 to test your understanding.

Activity 1: Practice Writing a Business Letter

Kim Crater, who lives at 6161 Culp Avenue, Niagara Falls, Ontario L2G 4J5, bought three pair of socks. After a few washings, all three pair show the same problems: The elastic ribbing at the top of the socks has puckered and shrunk. The socks, which are the size suggested for his shoe size, now dig right into his skin. Kim has followed the laundering instructions. He wants new socks or his money back, and he wishes that the manufacturing company would solve the problem so other people won't be inconvenienced, too. He called the public library and learned the address of the company that made the Sturdee socks: Tricot Knitting Mills, 7080 Rue Marconi, Montreal, QC H2S 8K1.

Imagine that you're Kim. Write a letter that tells the company what you (Kim) want them to do. Since you do not know the name of the recipient of the letter, omit the salutation line. Think strategically. Briefly make your main point in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, recount in chronological order the events from purchasing the socks to the problem with them. Tell the company that you've enclosed a sock to show them the problem. Conclude with a paragraph in which you remind Tricot Knitting Mills what you want them to do about the situation. Create the envelope for Kim, too.

Check your own work by looking at the answer for Activity 1.

Answer to Activity 1

Works Cited

Canada Post. "Chapter Three: Addressing." Canada Postal Guide. 14 June 2001. http://www.canadapost.ca/tools.

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