- •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
2.9 What is salutation followed by? When can we use the phrase “To Whom It May Concern”?
The salutation directly addresses the recipient of the letter and is followed by a colon (except when a friendly, familiar, sociable tone is intended, in which case a comma is used). Salutations add a personal touch to your letter.
Dear followed by a courtesy title and the person's surname. Initials or first names are not generally used in salutations: Dear Mr Smith, not Dear Mr J. Smith or Dear Mr John Smith.
If you don’t know the name of the person you are writing to you may use:
Dear Sir opens a letter written to a man whose name you do not know.
Dear Sirs is used to address a company.
Dear Madam is used to address a woman, whether single or married, whose name you do not know.
Dear Sir or Madam is used to address a person of whom you know neither the name nor the sex.
"To Whom It May Concern" is also a salutation you may use when you know neither the person nor the organisation that could be interested in your letter.
The best solution is to make a quick, anonymous phone call to the organization and ask for a name; or, address the salutation to a department name, committee name, or a position name: "Dear Personnel Department," "Dear Recruitment Committee," "Dear Chairperson," "Dear Director of Financial Aid".
2.10 What is the role of the subject line in a business letter?
This provides a further reference, saves introducing the subject in the first paragraph, immediately draws attention to the topic of the letter, and allows the writer to refer to it throughout the letter.
2.11 What are the paragraphs of a business letter? What does each of them serve for?
Introductory paragraph.
It is an important part which sets the tone of the letter and gives your reader his first impression of you and your company.Here you will thank your correspondent for his letter introduce yourself and your company if necessary, state the subject of the letter, and set out the purpose of the letter.
Main paragraph(s).
This is the main part of your letter and will concern the points that need to be made, answers you wish to give, or questions you want to ask.
Concluding paragraph.
You should thank the person for writing, if you have not done so at the beginning. Encourage further enquiries or correspondence, mention that you look forward to hearing from your correspondent soon. You have also wish to restate, very briefly, one or two of the most important of the points you have made in the main part of your letter.At the end of the letter, always include a way for your readers to contact you.
What complimentary close can you use?
Your letter begines with: |
You close it with: |
Dear Sir, Dear Sirs, Dear Madam or Dear Sir or Madam |
Yours fathfully, |
A personal name – Dear Mr James, Dear Mrs Robinson, Dear Ms Jasmin |
Yours sinserely, |
The comma after the complimentary close is optional.
Note that Americans tend to close even formal letters with “Yours trully” or “Trully yours”, which is unusual in the UK in commercial correspondence. Buta letter to a friend may end with “Yours trully” or “Best wishes”.