II. Optional Parts of Business Letters

The attention line, the subject title, references, enclosures, the confidence notation, the copy notation, the postscript are regarded as optional parts of a business letter.

Attention Line. An alternative to including the recipient’s name or position in the address is to use an attention line. The attention line is placed below the inside address and above the salutation. It is always underlined to draw the correspondent’s attention to the fact that this letter should be forwarded to a particular person in the company. Make sure to capitalize the first word and the first letters in the name of the person’s position in the company. When you use an attention line, address you letter to the company and use the salutation Dear Sirs or Gentlemen.

Subject Title. The subject title is placed below the salutation and above the body. You should underline it and capitalize all the nouns in it.

The subject title 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. To refer to the topic of the letter, the words above and above-mentioned are used, e.g. the above invoice.

Reference. References are usually written below the sender’s address or the printed letterhead. 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), which may refer to the chronological number of the letter and the number of the department. References may also contain the initials of the writer or/and the typist (e.g. DS/MR stands for Donald Sampson, the writer, and for his secretary Mary Raynor). Here are some ways to write references:

Our reference (Our ref.)

Your reference (Your ref.)

In your reply please refer to … .

Our file No. … .

Please quote No. … when replying.

Enclosures. If there are any enclosures, e.g. leaflets, prospectuses, etc., with the letter, these may be mentioned in the body of the letter. But many firms in any case write Enclosure, Enclosures, Enc., or Encl. at the bottom of the letter, and when there are a number of documents, these are listed. The first letters are capital and the articles are omitted in the list of the enclosed documents.

Confidence Notation. The phrase Private and confidential may be written at the head of a letter or below the inside address, and more importantly on the envelope, in the case where the letter is intended for the eyes of the named recipient. It should always be underlined. There are many variations of the phrase – ‘Confidential’, ‘Strictly confidential’ – but little difference in meaning between them.

Copy Notation. The copy notation c.c. (carbon copies) is written, usually at the end of the letter, when copies are sent to people other than the named recipient. The names of those who will receive copies of this letter follow the copy notation. Sometimes you will not want the recipient to know that other people have received copies. In this case, b.c.c. (blind carbon copies) is written on the copies themselves, though not on the top copy (the original letter).

Postscript. The postscript is written at the very bottom of the letter only in the case when after the letter had been singed something very important happened. We treat postscripts in the same way as we treat other paragraphs, except that we precede each postscript by P.S., PS: or PS.