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Essentials of a Business Letter
Essentials of a Business Letter : The essentials of a good business letter may be summarised as follows. - COMPLETENESS : The letter must be complete in itself. It should contain all the information required by the addressee. The important and relevant matter should not be left out. Incomplete letters do not produce the desired effect on the mind of the reader. When a letter is incomplete, an unnecessary delay is caused in seeking clarifications. The writer should try to grasp all the relevant facts and arrange them logically and systematically to incorporate them in the body of the letter.
- CLARITY : The writer must be clear about what he wants to convey and then he should try to express it in simple and straight forward language. Clear writing and clear thinking should go hand in hand, and person who thinks straight is usually able to write straight. Before writing, the writer should plan the message to be conveyed in order to avoid vagueness. Planning helps to produce the orderly kind of letter that creates a good impression because its message is clear.
- SIMPLICITY : Business letter – writing calls in fact for a plain style-a-style which is simple, clear and easily understood. Accordingly the language of business letters should be very simple. The use of winding expressions and high sounding phrases should be avoided.
- ACCURACY : A business letter should not have any false or misleading statement. There should be no mistakes which usually creep in a letter due to negligence. Mistakes, however small, should be avoided, as they cause much inconvenience and trouble. All facts and figures should be as accurate as possible and documents like bills of exchange, invoices, statements of accounts should be carefully prepared and checked.
- BREVITY : In a business letter unnecessary words and superfluous matter should be avoided. As brevity in letter is the soul of a commercial correspondence, the writer must see that every sentence he has written in impregnated with an appropriate meaning.
- SINCERITY : Whether a person is writing a personal letter or a business letter, he needs to write it with sincerity. In other words, he must be himself and not an imitation of somebody else. The business letter may seem to be a common piece of writing, if all letters are modelled to a set style. It must have originality of the sort that expresses the thoughts of its writer in his own style.
- COURTESY : Courtesy makes friends, and friends in business are no less necessary than in other walks of life. In a business letter courtesy should be present everywhere, as it pacifies anger and pays in the long run. Courtesy means that the general tone of the letter should be mild and there should be consideration for the feelings of others. Curt and rude letters have got no place in the business world. Courtesy should not be sacrificed for the sake of brevity. Discourteous and unpleasant language should be avoided even while writing letters of complaint or letters of refusal.
- STYLE : The words used in a business letter and the way in which they are used express the writer’s personality and give the letter what is called its style. Style in writing as in other walks of life is a quality peculiar to the individual. It is determined by the background, training, experience of a person and the way he thinks. If one writes with naturalness and ease, The letter so produced will reflect the personality of the writer. It is correctly said, therefore, that Style is the man.
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