Kind Of Letter (Person Letter, Social Letter and Business Letter )

Person Letter

Introduction

A Personal letter is sent from one individual to another individual or organisation in order to address matters of an informal nature. Examples of these can include;

• Apologies
• Thank you's
• Personal reference
• Congratulations
• Invitations
• Condolences

They differ from formal types in that they can be used to express personal feelings and depending on the relationship between the sender and receiver do not require formal concise language.

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Quicklinks

• Layout
• Conventions
• Content
• Further considerations

Layout

The example below details the general layout that a personal letter should conform to. Each aspect of the is detailed more fully below the image.

Conventions

Conventions are not as critical as they are in a formal correspondence but the following general layout should be adhered to:

Addresses:

1) Your Address 
You must always remember to include your own address on the top right-hand side of the page. This will enable the person that you are writing to, to be able to reply.

2) The Address of the person you are writing to This address should be displayed beneath your address on the left-hand side, remember to include the name of the person that you are writing to.

Date:

This should be displayed on the right-hand side of the page on the line beneath your address and should be written in full format:

e.g. 1st January 2001

Salutation & Greeting:

Dear Mr Jones, 
The above shows the format of the greeting line. The salutation formats are shown below:

Mr - for a male
Mrs - for a married female
Miss - for an unmarried female
Ms - for a female whose status is unknown or would prefer to remain anonymous
Dr - for a person with the status of a doctor

The salutation should be followed by the surname only (not the first name).

If you are familiar with the person that you are writing to then it may be more appropriate to include their first name rather than using their title. This is a decision that you will need to make based on your relationship with the person in question.

Concluding:

1) Yours sincerely,
You should conclude with the words: "Yours sincerely,".

Followed by:

2) Your signature
Sign your name, then print it underneath the signature.

You may wish to conclude with something more friendly e.g. "All the best", "Best regards," etc.

Content

Consider your relationship and familiarity with the person or organisation with whom you are writing to and adjust the level of formality accordingly.

Further Considerations

Expressing Yourself - Write by hand; your penmanship is a piece of you and by writing by hand it gives the recipient something completely unique and special.

Mementoes - Enclose a photo; in some circumstances your recipient might have forgotten about or never have seen you. Alternatively enclose a memento of a shared experience (these can be photocopied, rather than sending the original).

From the Heart - Remind your recipient of your shared experiences; or share one thing about that person that you admire, compliments can go a long way to building on relationships.

Avoid Email - Email has made it easy to jot down a few words, spell check and hit send. When handwriting use conventional snail mail, obviously checking for spelling and grammar. Know what you are going to say and how you’d like to write it before you start, there is no delete button in real life.

Social Letter

The Social Letters which are written to relations and intimate friends should be written in an easy, conversational style. The Social letters are really of the nature of friendly chat: and, being as a rule unpremeditated and spontaneous compositions, they are informal and free-and-easy as compared with essays. Just as in friendly talks, as in friendly letters, we can touch on many subjects and in any order we like. And we can use colloquial expressions which would in formal essays be quite out of place. But this does not mean that we can be careless and slovenly in dashing off our letters. For, it is insulting to ask a friend to decipher a badly written, ill-composed and confusing scrawl. 

The Social Letters which are written to relations and intimate friends should be written in an easy, conversational style. So, it must for us to take care and preserve some order in expressing our thoughts. Above all, it must be remembered that, however free-and-easy may be our style, we are as much bound by the rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar and idiom in writing a letter as we are in writing the most formal letter. 

The Social Letters which are written to relations and intimate friends should be written in an easy, conversational style. Such ungrammatical expressions as “an advice, those sort of things and he met my brother and I" are not permissible both in a friendly letter and in a business letter. Mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar at once stamp a letter-writer as uneducated. 

In Social Letters to relations and intimate friends, use the proper form of address. 

The proper form of address is the name (without title) of the person to whom you are writing, prefixed by such qualifying terms as Dear, My Dear, Dearest etc… 
For examples: 

Dear Father, 

Dear Mother, 

Dear Brother, 

Dearest Sister, 

Dear Edward, 

My Dear Bill, 

But if you are writing to an ordinary person who is much older than you are, or of superior rank, it is respectful to use a prefix like Mr., Mrs., Ms. Etc…The Social-letters which are written to relations and intimate friends should be written in an easy, conversational style. 

For examples: 

Boemi Manti 2
Gedaton,
Lumbung.

24th May 2016.

Dear Gide,

I am very happy when i know that you win the Young Scientist Award for popularization of linguistic. Your articles on linguistic topics like Second Language acquisition, Psycholinguistic, Syntax, Semantic and English For Kids have become very popular, especially among the language teacher. Some of these articles have finaly found their way into text-books. You have inspired a lot of linguist to start their own research. For your insightfulness and valuable contribution, a science-journal has noted that you are the new Chomsky.

You have made all your college-mates proud. May you continue to succeed and make a mark in the international field?

Let the Almighty bless you with more success!

Yours sincerely,

Pradata Rakha 

Business Letter

A business letter is more formal than a personal letter. It should have a margin of at least one inch on all four edges. It is always written on 8½"x11" (or metric equivalent) unlined stationery. There are sixparts to a business letter.

1. The Heading. This contains the return address (usually two or three lines) with the date on the last line.

Sometimes it may be necessary to include a line after the address and before the date for a phone number, fax number, E-mail address, or something similar.

Often a line is skipped between the address and date. That should always be done if the heading is next to the left margin. (See Business Letter Styles.)

It is not necessary to type the return address if you are using stationery with the return address already imprinted. Always include the date.

2. The Inside Address. This is the address you are sending your letter to. Make it as complete as possible. Include titles and names if you know them.

This is always on the left margin. If an 8½" x 11" paper is folded in thirds to fit in a standard 9" business envelope, the inside address can appear through the window in the envelope.

An inside address also helps the recipient route the letter properly and can help should the envelope be damaged and the address become unreadable.

Skip a line after the heading before the inside address. Skip another line after the inside address before the greeting.

3. The Greeting. Also called the salutation. The greeting in a business letter is always formal. It normally begins with the word "Dear" and always includes the person's last name.

It normally has a title. Use a first name only if the title is unclear--for example, you are writing to someone named "Leslie," but do not know whether the person is male or female. For more on the form of titles, see Titles with Names.

The greeting in a business letter always ends in a colon. (You know you are in trouble if you get a letter from a boyfriend or girlfriend and the greeting ends in a colon--it is not going to be friendly.)

4. The Body. The body is written as text. A business letter is never hand written. Depending on the letter style you choose, paragraphs may be indented. Regardless of format, skip a line between paragraphs.

Skip a line between the greeting and the body. Skip a line between the body and the close.

5. The Complimentary Close. This short, polite closing ends with a comma. It is either at the left margin or its left edge is in the center, depending on the Business Letter Style that you use. It begins at the same column the heading does.

The block style is becoming more widely used because there is no indenting to bother with in the whole letter.

6. The Signature Line. Skip two lines (unless you have unusually wide or narrow lines) and type out the name to be signed. This customarily includes a middle initial, but does not have to. Women may indicate how they wish to be addressed by placing Miss, Mrs., Ms. or similar title in parentheses before their name.

The signature line may include a second line for a title, if appropriate. The term "By direction" in the second line means that a superior is authorizing the signer.

The signature should start directly above the first letter of the signature line in the space between the close and the signature line. Use blue or black ink.

Business letters should not contain postscripts.

Some organizations and companies may have formats that vary slightly.

For examples: 

Block Form

5 Hill Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53700

March 15, 2005

Ms. Helen Jones
President
Jones, Jones & Jones
123 International Lane
Boston, Massachusetts 01234 

Dear Ms. Jones:

Ah, business letter format-there are block formats, and indented formats, and modified block formats . . . and who knows what others. To simplify matters, we're demonstrating the block format on this page, one of the two most common formats. For authoritative advice about all the variations, we highly recommend The Gregg Reference Manual, 9th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), a great reference tool for workplace communications. There seems to be no consensus about such fine points as whether to skip a line after your return address and before the date: some guidelines suggest that you do; others do not. Let's hope that your business letter succeeds no matter which choice you make!

When you use the block form to write a business letter, all the information is typed flush left, with one-inch margins all around. First provide your own address, then skip a line and provide the date, then skip one more line and provide the inside address of the party to whom the letter is addressed. If you are using letterhead that already provides your address, do not retype that information; just begin with the date. For formal letters, avoid abbreviations where possible.

Skip another line before the salutation, which should be followed by a colon. Then write the body of your letter as illustrated here, with no indentation at the beginnings of paragraphs. Skip lines between paragraphs.

After writing the body of the letter, type the closing, followed by a comma, leave 3 blank lines, then type your name and title (if applicable), all flush left. Sign the letter in the blank space above your typed name. Now doesn't that look professional?

Sincerely,

John Doe
Administrative Assistant

Indented Form

5 Hill Street Madison, Wisconsin 53700 15 March 2005 Ms. Helen Jones President Jones, Jones & Jones 123 International Lane Boston, Massachusetts 01234 Dear Ms. Jones: Ah, business letter format--there are block formats, and indented formats, and modified block formats . . . and who knows what others. To simplify matters, we're demonstrating the indented format on this page, one of the two most common formats. For authoritative advice about all the variations, we highly recommend The Gregg Reference Manual, 9th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), a great reference tool for workplace communications. There seems to be no consensus about such fine points as whether to skip a line after your return address and before the date: some guidelines suggest that you do; others do not. Let's hope that your business letter succeeds no matter which choice you make! If you are using the indented form, place your address at the top, with the left edge of the address aligned with the center of the page. Skip a line and type the date so that it lines up underneath your address. Type the inside address and salutation flush left; the salutation should be followed by a colon. For formal letters, avoid abbreviations. Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch. Skip lines between paragraphs. Instead of placing the closing and signature lines flush left, type them in the center, even with the address and date above, as illustrated here. Now doesn't that look professional? Sincerely, John Doe