Parts of Business Letters – Englet

 

 

Letterhead  | Parts of Business Letters

 

The first part of a letter is a letterhead. It consists of a name and address of a firm that sends a business letter. It sometimes consists of telephone number, address of branch of offices, names of CEO and It is usually printed on the top of the paper.

Examples :

a.

ENGLET & BROT LTD
115 Downing Street
LONDON- ENGLAND

b.

GOOGLE MILLS INCORPORATION

499 NORTH WARREN AVENUE

SYRACUSE 2, NEW YORK

Phone     : 1499

President: Francois Carlos          Established : 1999

 

The second part of a letter is a date line. It consists of date, month, year or (month, date, year). If there is no letterhead, make sure you put  the name of the city before the date line. Examples :

23rd November, 2017    or  November  23rd, 2017

28 July, 2017                 or    July 28, 2017

If there is no letter head in a letter, you must write a full address of the sender, example:

115 Downing Street, London

June 28th, 2017

Inside Address | Parts of Business Letters

 

The third part of a letter is an inside address. It usually consists of 3 or 4 lines:

The name of a person or the firm you are   writing  to.

Number, the  name of the street

The name of city ( A country when applicable)

Examples :

Mr. Prana Pramudya

115 Downing Street

London

Mmes. Robert Thompson & Audrey

112, Downing Street

London E.C. 2, England

Attention Line

The fourth part of a letter is an attention line. Business letters are usually  more addressed to companies than to one person. But, sometimes this form of written communication should take place between company and  company  or between company and a person and vice versa. In this situation we need to use what people call “attention line”. We mostly use attention line for the following three reasons :

1. We want the letter directly delivered to a certain person in a company.
2. We do not know the person’s name we are writing to and we decide to write to the company they work in.
3. We want the letter to reach the person we are writing to faster.

Attention line is usually put after the inside address. Example:

Gifted Restaurant
16771 Fifteen Avenue
New York, N. Y.

Attention  :  Miss Rachel White

Salutation

The fifth part of a letter is a salutation. It is usually to greet the recipient in a polite manner. American and British people have different customs in writing the punctuation for the salutation. See the difference:

British Style

Examples:

Dear Sir,

Sir,

Dear Sirs,

Dear Madam,

Mesdames,

 

American Style

 

Examples:

Dear Sir:

Sir:

Gentlemen:

Dear Madam:

Mesdames:

If you know the person you are writing to, you can use the style below which is more personal or informal:

Dear Mr. Brown,

My dear Madam Tiara,

Subject Line

The sixth part of a letter is a subject line. A subject line is usually capitalized and underlined:

Examples:

CHEAP CRUISE TO SCANDINAVIA

SCANDINAVIAN VACATION

 

 

Body of The Letter

 

The seventh part of a letter is the body. A  good letter body should fulfill the following requirements :

Concise / short : Never make up sentences just to make a letter look longer.

Simple : Avoid making up complex sentences. Try to make up a simple sentence.

Systematic : Always put your ideas in order from A to Z. ( From opening paragraph to closing paragraph there should not be any repetitions)

Body of the Letter usually consists of 3 paragraphs :

the opening paragraph

the content paragraph

the closing paragraph

 

Complimentary Closes

The eight part of a letter is complimentary closes. Complementary closing/closes usually consists of 2 lines:

Closing Words/Expressions

Name of Firm

Examples:

Yours truly,

Wisnu & Ninda LTD

Truly Yours,

Wisnu & Ninda LTD

Signature Line | Parts of Business Letters

The ninth part of a letter is a signature line. A business letter signature line   usually consists of   signature  of  the     person    who    writes    the business letter.   Below the signature we usually put our  name.  Below our name, sometimes we put our  title  or  position  in  the  company   or institution  we work in.   Mostly,  this  is  just  to inform the person who has not known us before.

Examples :

  signature

Adam Williams
Customer Relation Manager

         signature

Adam Williams

Identification Initials | Parts of Business Letters

 

The tenth part of a letter is an identification initials. Identification Initials are usually used by large-sized companies for administrative purposes only. These initials mainly have two functions :
a. to give information about the secretary or the author of a business letter.
b. to provide data in case of some incidents or errors.

Identification Initials are generally put at the left-hand bottom, just after the signature line. They are sometimes put at the same line with the date line.

Example :
J.B./m. h.
The identification initials mean that the author is Jack Brown and the secretary/clerk is Meredith Harrison.

Enclosure Reference | Parts of Business Letters

 

The elevent part of a letter is enclosure reference. When our business letter has one or more attachments, such as price list, collection letter, brochure, invoice, resume etc., we must make sure that we state it in the main letter. The statement that we send another paper other than the main letter is called enclosure reference. This enclosure reference is usually shortened as Enc. or ENC. or Inc. or Encl. or Incl..

Example :
Encl.   : 1 (one) Illustrated price list
Incl.    : 1 (one) Invoice
Enc.    : Our 2010 Catalog
Inc.     : Cheque no. 954646/B

See our collection of business letter samples here.

 

Business Letter Elements

 

Business Letter Closings

Layout of Business Letters

Letter Phrases

Optional Business Letter Parts

Styles

 

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