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How To Set Out A Letter

How To Set Out A Letter

A creative writer offers detailed instructions for creating a business or professional letter in this video tutorial. Learn how to format a business letter to create a professional looking correspondence!

It's important to set out any kind of business or professional letter really clearly and there are certain conventions for this that people will expect to see. So, you write the address at the top right hand corner of the page, and put the post code, and you might also, nowadays, want to put your email address underneath it. It's then important that you put the date, you can put the date underneath your address, or you can put it on the other side of the page above the address of the person that you're sending the letter to.

Then, you need the name of the person you are sending the letter to that will go here and then you write their address underneath it. You probably don't need to put the full post code, unless you're going to put it in one of those transparent envelopes that you want it to show through, because when they receive it, they'll know what their own address is. Then it's important to put the name of the person you're writing to, and this is a tricky bit, because if you know them, you'll want to put their Christian name.

If you don't know them at all, you'll want to put Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms, and the surname. And if it's in between, probably it would be better to put their first name and their surname without the title. In a business letter, it can be really helpful if you then put the subject matter of the letter underneath, underneath the comma.

So, you might put RE: The Visit to Hungary, or whatever it is, the subject of your letter is, and then you start writing your letter. You want to keep it straightforward and simple. You normally start underneath the comma, although if it's a very long title, you'd probably set it a bit further towards the margin.

And then after you've started writing your paragraph, you go back to this line and keep writing like this until you reach the end of the paragraph. And then you put your full stop and then you start your new paragraph. You can leave a line space if you like because it makes the letter look clearer and easier to read.

And then, you do whichever paragraph you need and then when you come to end the letter, leave a line space, and you normally put, Yours Sincerely, if you know the person. Yours Faithfully, if you don't. Or if you know them, you might put Kind Regards or Best Wishes and you put your name at the bottom, typed and you sign it in the gap in between.

If you're going to carry on over the page, you normally put a line, and put 2, and then you turn over your page and you continue with your letter and end it here. It's really not difficult and it makes a good impression if you have a clear and well laid out letter. And that's how to set out a letter. .