1. The AMA handbook of business letters
/ Jeffrey L. Seglin Edward Coleman.—
3rd ed.
Maryam Bolouri
M.bolouri9@gmail.com
2. planning
Some letters do not require as
elaborate a plan as others. A letter to
a customer detailing a proposal for a
product purchase will obviously
need a more elaborate plan than a
thank-you note for a business lunch
3. Three steps
The following three steps are essential in the
planning of any letter:
1. Researching the facts
2. Analyzing the subject and reader
3. Knowing your objectives and how to
accomplish them
If you follow these steps as you are planning
to write any letter, you should find that your
letters will be clear and well received, and
will achieve your desired goal.
4. Thank you for an interesting meeting yesterday. I
appreciate the time and information you shared with me.
I can understand your sense of loyalty to existing
business relationships and the importance you place on
knowing and being known by the people you do
business with.
During our conversation you suggested that a lockbox
arrangement might speed up the collection of cash
available for investment. I would like to investigate this
possibility and estimate the dollar benefit to your
company.
I will give you a call early next week to arrange lunch
together as you suggested. Thanks again for your time. I
look forward to doing business together.
6. Remember that…
Planning by itself is not enough to assure you
of a positive response from your reader. There
are, however, essential components of any
letter that can multiply the chances of its
effectiveness.
Before you begin to worry about the basic
mechanics of a letter (structure, appearance,
and grammar), think seriously about the attitude
you wish to convey.
Your attitude is conveyed through your choice
of language, tone, and focus of attention. Each
of these individual components is as important
as anything else that goes into making up a
successful letter.
7. 1. Language—Clarity vs. Ambiguity
A simple rule to remember is that the English
you use in your every- day business should be
the same good English used by people in all
walks of life.
Granted, there may be terms intrinsic to your
industry, but there is not a special type of
‘‘business English’’ to be learned and used
when writing business letters. Good English is
good English.
Be clear and straightforward in your letters.
Write what you mean. Don’t write in circles,
making your reader guess what you mean.
8. Example:
My correspondence was initiated to inform you of
the high caliber of programs and activities of an
organization in which I have enjoyed being
involved over the past few years. The County
Business Association has served to keep me
informed of, and actively involved in, the
current political and economic issues affecting
small businesses through its monthly breakfast
meetings with interesting and impressive
speakers, its newsletter on legislative activities in
Washington, and several other programs outlined
in the attached letter.
9. Problems:
1. the clarity and directness of the statement.
What line can you find the name of the company?
Be as direct as possible in your letter writing. If you can
convey your message in five words instead of ten, do so.
You don’t have a great deal of space in a letter to convey
your thoughts. You are not writing a novel or a treatise on
the economy. The idea is to get your message across
clearly and directly.
Stop beating around the bush
Be clear, direct, and unambiguous in your letter
writing.
10. problems:
Avoid the use of pompous or inflated language in
your letters. It may sound lofty to write,
So many words
‘‘My correspondence was initiated to inform you
of . . .’’
You are writing to communicate with your reader,
and if you mean,
‘‘I am writing to you about . . . ,’’ you should write
what you mean.
11. Rewritten in this form left little doubt for other
thoughts
Through monthly breakfast meetings with
interesting speakers, a newsletter on
legislative activities in Washington, and
several other programs, the County
Business Association has kept me
informed of and involved in the current
political and economic issues affecting
smaller businesses.
12. 2. Tone
The tone or personality of a letter can help you
get a positive reaction from a reader. The tone
should be set at the very start of a letter and
maintained throughout. The tone of any business
letter should be courteous and friendly, and
written as if you were talking with the reader. You
don’t want to get too technical in a letter. Write in
language that the reader can understand. The
tone should help to show that someone with a
personality—a human being—is writing the letter.
If the reader believes that the writer is genuinely
concerned about how the topic of the letter
affects him or her, a positive response is likely.
13. Focus of Attention—The ‘‘You Attitude’’
An important concept in letter writing is
something called the ‘‘you attitude.’’ The ‘‘you
attitude’’ insists that the focus of attention in
your letters be directed toward the reader, the
‘‘you’’ to whom you are writing. Directing a
letter toward a reader may seem very simple,
but a letter writer too often incorrectly assumes
that his or her interests and knowledge are the
same as the reader’s. Some legwork needs to
be done when you are deciding how to make a
letter reader-oriented. This legwork may come
at the planning stage of your letter
14. Cont.
What will motivate this reader to react favorably to my
letter?
What interests this reader?
What is this reader’s viewpoint on issues I am
addressing in my letter?
part of the whole idea of creating a personality or tone
in a letter is to let the reader know that a living person
A writer must focus the attention of a letter on the
reader. If you choose the language and tone for your
letter to convey an attitude of commitment to and
interest in your reader, you will find that your letters will
be more successful in grasping your readers’ attention
and encouraging them to respond favorably.
15. Length
It affects appearance of your letter.
One page is preferable to a three
page letter.
Main topics in the 1st paragraph
Concise clear short planned
Not a one sentence paragraph-
staccato like reading
