- •1. An introduction to business writting
- •What are the purposes for writing business letters?
- •What strategies can be used to achieve your purpose?
- •Why is it important to analyze the audience you are writing to?
- •What categories of audience do you know? Can you characterize them?
- •2. Business letter layout
- •2.5 What does the letterhead consist of? What types of companies can you come across in the letterhead? How you should write dates?
- •2.6 What courtesy titles do you know? What other titles can you use to address a person you are writing to?
- •2.7 What are the ways of addressing a letter? (when you know only a department, the company etc.)
- •2.8 What do we need references for? Is attention line optional or compulsory?
- •2.9 What is salutation followed by? When can we use the phrase “To Whom It May Concern”?
- •2.10 What is the role of the subject line in a business letter?
- •2.11 What are the paragraphs of a business letter? What does each of them serve for?
- •What does a signature block include? What does p.P. Stand for?
- •What are the last two components of a business letter? What do the abbreviations cc: and bc: stand for?
- •What are the formats of business letters? What are the differences between them?
- •Content and style in business correspondence.
- •Why do executives prefer written documents to other forms of communication?
- •10. Keep your sentence average length low
- •11. Use simple words rather than complex ones
- •12. Order and sequence
- •13. Use active verbs rather than passive verbs
- •14. Prepositions
- •What are the format guidelines?
- •What are the types of memos? Can you characterize them?
- •5. Sales letter
- •What’s a sales letter and what’s its job?
- •Is any other support literature needed and what is it needed for?
- •What should a sales letter be in order to sell?
- •What is people’s motivation to buy based on and what does it mean for writing a sales letter?
- •How do you understand “buying resistance”?
- •Could you name seven universal motivations?
- •What are the steps in sales letter writing?
- •Why is it important to catch your reader’s attention from the very beginning?
- •What’s the first thing your reader will look at?
- •Can you give any examples of headlines? Why are these headlines proven to get your reader’s attention?
- •Can you describe “problem-agitate technique”?
- •What do you do after identifying the problem?
- •What examples of credentials can you provide?
- •What should you point out in your sales letter: benefits or features of your product or service?
- •What besides benefits could be considered as powerful selling tools?
- •What do the best offers comprise?
- •What extra incentive can you give in your sales letter?
- •There is one more most read element in sales letters. What’s it?
- •What are the parts of a sales letter? Can you characterize them?
- •6. Resume
- •6.2. What’re the two basic resume designs and what’s the choice of your resume design based on?
- •6.8 What information do you present in the body of a resume and how is it arranged?
- •6.9 What information should you provide under the “work experience” title?
- •6.10 What should you do if you can’t keep all the details about your experience and education at one page?
- •6.11 What follows the experience section?
- •6.12 What do you write in the conclusion?
- •6.13 Why do we need letters of recommendation?
- •6.14 What are the way of presenting a letter of recommendation? Which way is better? Why?
- •7. Cover letter.
- •7.6 Characterize the body of the Cover Letter and the two approaches which can be used here.
- •7.11 What shouldn’t you say explaining why you left the previous positions?
- •7.12 How to explain why you are applying for the position?
- •8. Inquiry
- •What is usually asked for in the body of an inquiry?
- •9. Replies to inquiries.
- •9.1 What are the general rules for writing a reply to an inquiry?
- •9.2 What should you do if you received an inquiry erroneously?
- •9.3 What are the parts of a reply? (3)
- •10. Quotations
- •10.4 What should be mentioned in a quotation?
- •10.5 Are the prices quoted always legally binding?
- •10.6 What types of discounts do you know?
- •10.7 What main Incoterms do you know?
- •10.8 What are the two ways of quoting terms?
- •11. Offers
- •11.1 Types of offers.
- •11.2 Parts of offers.
- •12. Counter-Proposals
- •13.Orders
- •The reasons for refusing an order:
- •14. Complaints
- •14.1 What is a complaint, its objective and scope?
- •14.2 The essential rule in writing complaints
- •14.4 What may complaints arise from?
- •14.5 What are the parts of complaints? Characterize them.
- •15. Adjustments
- •15.1 The objective of an adjustment
- •15.2 The rules for writing adjustments
- •15.3. The parts of adjustments
- •15.4 The ways of correcting mistakes which have been made?
- •15.5 The reasons for rejecting complaints
2.6 What courtesy titles do you know? What other titles can you use to address a person you are writing to?
Surname known
If you know the surname of the person you are writing to, you write this on the first line of the address, preceded by a courtesy title and either the person's initial(s) or his/her first given name, e.g. Mr J.E. Smith or Mr John Smith, not Mr Smith.
Courtesy titles used in addresses are as follows:
Mr (with or without a full stop; pronounced ['mistq]) is the usual courtesy title for a man.
Mrs (with or without a full stop; pronounced ['misiz]) is used for a married woman.
Miss (pronounced [mis]) is used for an unmarried woman.
Ms (with or without a full stop; pronounced [miz] or [mqz]) is used for both married and unmarried women. Many women now prefer to be addressed by this title, and it is a useful form of address when you are not sure whether the woman you are writing to is married or not.
Messrs (with or without a full stop; pronounced ['mesqz]; abbreviation for Messieurs) is used occasionally for two or more men (Messrs P. Jones and B.L.Parker) but more commonly forms part of the name of a firm (Messrs Collier & Clerke & Co.).
There are a lot of special titles which could be included in addresses. They include academic or medical titles: Doctor (Dr.), Professor(Prof-); military titles: Captain (Capt.), Major (Maj.), Colonel (Col.), General (Gen.); aristocratic title: Sir (which means that he is a Knight; not to be confused with the salutation Dear Sir and always followed by a given name - Sir John Brown, not Sir J. Brown or Sir Brown), Dame, Lord, Baroness, etc.
Esq (with or without full stop; abbreviation for Esquire and pronounced [es'kwai ]) is seldom used now. If used, it can only be used instead of Mr and is placed after the name. Don't use Esq and Mr at the same time: Bruce Hill Esq, not Mr Bruce Hill Esq.
All these courtesy titles and special titles, except Esq, are also used in salutations.
2.7 What are the ways of addressing a letter? (when you know only a department, the company etc.)
a) Title known
If you do not know the name of the person you are writing to, you may know or be able to assume his/her title or position in the company, (e.g. The Sales Manager, The Finance Director), so that you can use it in the address.
b)Department known
Alternatively you can address your letter to a particular department of the company (e.g. The Sales Department, The Accounts Department).
c) Company only
Finally, if you know nothing about the company and do not want to make any assumptions about the person or department your letter should go to, you can simply address it to the company itself (e.g. SoundsonicLtd., Messrs Collier & Clerke & Co.).
2.8 What do we need references for? Is attention line optional or compulsory?
References are quoted to indicate what the letter refers to (Your Ref.) and the correspondence to refer to when replying (Our Ref.).
References may either appear in figures, e.g. 661/17 in which case 661 may refer to the chronological number of the letter and 17 to the number of the department, or, DS/MR, in which case DS stands for Donald Sampson, the writer, and MR for his secretary, Mary Raynor.
References – optional.