This document provides guidance on writing effective business letters. It outlines the standard parts of a business letter like letterhead, date, inside address, salutation, body, complimentary close, and signature. It describes considerations for business letters like completeness, correctness, concreteness, conciseness, clarity, and courtesy. Letters should be factual, accurate, and avoid ambiguity to clearly convey information to the reader in a polite and respectful manner.

1. Chapter 10
Business correspondence

2. Parts of Business Letters
 Most business letters have seven standard
parts.
They are letterhead, reference and date, inside
address, salutation, body, complimentary close,
and signature.
When appropriate, any of the following optional
items can be included.
Attention line, subject line, file or account
number, enclosures, carbon copy notation,
mailing notation and postscript.

3. Letterhead
 Letterhead varies with business organizations
and occupies the top of the first page. They may
be positioned at the center or at the left margin
the top of the page. A business letterhead,
usually printed, contains all or some of the
following elements: The company’s name,
address, postcode, telephone number, telex
number, fax number, the name of the officer or
the director and even some picture or slogan for
a symbol of the company.

4. Reference and date
 A typewritten date is necessarily included in the
heading.
The date is usually placed two lines below the
last line of the letterhead at left margin for full
block style or ending with the right margin for
indented style. It is usual to show the date in the
order day/month/year ( English Practice) or
month /day /year (American practice).
Avoid giving a date in figures and abbreviations.

5. Inside Address
 The inside address is typed directly below the
date line at the left hand margin. The inside
address of a letter to an individual consists of the
person’s courtesy title, name, business or
executive title ( it should be used immediately
after the name) and address.
When the letter is to a group, the inside address
includes the full group name and the address.
Care should be taken to address the recipient
exactly as on the envelope.

6. Salutation
Salutation is placed at the left margin two
lines below the inside address and two
lines above the body of the letter.
Considered a polite greeting with which a
friendly business letter begins, the
personal salutation must be appropriate
for the first line of the inside address.

7. Salutation
 If the letter is addressed to an individual, It is
usual to use:
Dear Mr. Smith,
Dear Ms. John,
Dear Prof. Hobart,
Dear Dr. Walter,
The trend is towards Ms. As the courtesy title for
all women regardless of their marital status.
When addressing a letter to a firm, Dear Sirs,
Ladies and gentlemen or Gentlemen (American
English ) would be used.

8. Attention Line
 An attention line is considered a part of the inside
addresses and it leads the letter to a particular person
or department when the letter is addressed to a
company.
It is usually between the inside address and the
salutation or above the inside address, as shown in
examples:
Attention: Import Dept.
For the attention of Mr. Donnan, Sales manager
Attention of Mr. Standard, General Manager.

9. Subject line
The subject heading is regarded as a part
of the body of a business letter.
Usually it is in the upper case or initial
capitals/underline and placed between the
salutation and the body of a letter to call
attention to what content the letter is
about.

10. Complimentary close
The complimentary close is simply a polite
way to end a letter. The expression for the
complimentary close should match the
salutation. It appears in the middle of the
page and two lines below the closing
sentence for indented layout. While it
starts at the left-hand margin for fully
blocked letters. Only the initial letter in the
first word of any complimentary close is
capitalized.

11. Enclosure
Enc. Or Encs. is typed two lines spaces
after the signature of the address when
something is sent along with the letter. An
enclosure can be anything in the envelope
in addition to the message itself.
Examples are as follows: Enc.: 1 Price List
If the enclosed are more than on, the
number should be marked.

12. Postscript
 When you find something forgotten to be
included in the letter body before the envelope is
to be sealed up.
You may state it after the signature in a
postscript with a simple signature again.
The adding of a P.S. should, however, be
avoided as far as possible.
For examples: PS: the catalogue was sent to
you on July 7th.

13. Format of a Business letter
 Full block form and modified block form with indented paragraphs are the two main
patterns of layout in current use. The former is now the most popular practice of
displaying business letters.
Its remarkable feature is that all typing lines, including those for the date, Inside name
and address, salutation, subject heading, each message paragraph and
complimentary close, begin at the left-hand margin. Business letters with the full block
form, along with open punctuation or mixed punctuations, re paragraphed by equal
line spaces.
For this letter-style the open punctuation pattern is used, the end of the date line, the
inside address lines, the salutation, the complimentary close and the signature block
lines are unpunctuated, but a comma is necessary between the day and year in the
date line and the full stop is retained after the abbreviation such as company, Inc. and
Ltd.
While the mixed punctuation pattern, the most welcomed style today, requires an
absence of punctuation marks from the date line, the inside address lines and the
signature block lines except a colon or comma after the salutation and the
complimentary close.
Modified block form with indented paragraphs indented style is the traditional British
practice with the heading usually in the middle and the date on the right-hand side.
The complimentary close may be in the center or commence at the center point. The
mixed punctuation is often used.

14. Writing Rules for Business Letters
 Business correspondence is still a basic activity involved
in trade, and remain a very important form of
communication even nowadays. They deliver their
companies’ images to the public. Business letters are
often an arrangement or regarded as evidence of a
contract. They are written for information exchange and
bridge over the desires between buyers and sellers. The
most effective letter should be easy to read and easy to
understand. They must be friendly and courteous.
We should bear in mind the point that business letters
play an important role in the development of goodwill
and friendly trade relationships.
Generally speaking ， they are consideration,
completeness, correctness, concreteness, conciseness,
clarity and courtesy.

15. Consideration
 Try to put yourself in his or her place to give
consideration to his or her wishes, demands,
interests and difficulties. Find the best way to
express your better understanding and present
the message. That enables a request to be
refused without killing all hope of business or
allows a refusal to do favor to be made without
harming friendship.

16. Correctness
 Correctness means not only proper expressions with
correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, but also
appropriate tone which is a help to achieve the purpose.
It is likely to convey the real message in a way that will
not cause offence even if it is a complaint or an answer
to such a letter. Business letters must be factual
information accurate figures and exact terms in
particular, for they involve the right, the duties and the
interest of both sides often as the base of all kinds of
documents.
Therefore we should not understate nor overstate as
understatement might lead to less confidence and hold
up the trade development. While overstatement throws
you into an awkward position.

17. Completeness
As you work hard for completeness, keep
the following guidelines in mind: Why do
you write the letter, what are the facts
supporting the reasons, whether you have
answered all the questions asked or not
and what the reader is expected to do.

18. Concreteness
 What the letter comes to should be specific,
definite.
 Take, for example, some qualities or characters
of goods that should be shown with exact figures
and avoid words like short, long or good.
Give specific time (with date, month, year and
even offer hour, minute if necessary).
But avoid expressions such as yesterday, next
month, immediately and etc.

19. Conciseness
 Conciseness means complete message but
briefest expression with no sacrificing clarity or
courtesy. A good business letter should be
precise and to the point. Single words are more
efficient than phrases. Wordy languages and
redundancy require more time and money to
type and to read. They are not what modern
business people want.

20. Clarity
 Keep constantly in mind what you want to say in
your letter. It is welcomed if you express yourself
clearly and directly in the simplest language.
Plain, simple words are more easily understood.
A properly paragraphed message is required for
the purpose of clarity. For instance ,we use
semimonthly instead of bimonthly for two times a
moth., because bimonthly may mean both two
times a month and once every two month.

21. Courtesy
 Courtesy means to show tactfully in your letters
the honest friendship, thoughtful appreciation,
sincere politeness, considerate understanding
and heartfelt respect. Answer letters in good
time and write to explain why if you fail to do it
promptly. Even if you don’t think the recipient is
right, you should still respond tactfully and
politely. Sometimes it is a help to use you-
attitude instead of I-attitude.