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ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCES (part 1)

1. FORM OF LETTERS

A letter is only a form of message which is written on a paper and readble or understandable by the reader.
There are three important conditions in writing a letter, they are:

1. Sender
2. Message
3. Receiver


When one of the conditions above is nothing, the process of sending a message will be nothing as well.
The most important thing in writing a letter is the reader or receiver understand what the sender means in his/her message. However, this old mechanism is not used in this modern life. All styles and types of letter has been used for years.

Most of letters are written in the same style and there are many conditions in writing letter. But the common letter is shown below!

A good letter should contain these following elements, they are:

1. Heading

Heading is commonly used to show the sender's address and contact number, even including the logo or symbol.

Sometimes, we can place the date as a heading.

2. Salutation

Salutation is like a greeting. This is the way to address people in a letter.

For examples:
  • Dear John,
  • My dearest boy,
  • To a special girl,
  • Dear Sir,
  • Dear Madam,
  • Dear Gentlement, etc

The use of "Dear" is purely formal. Besides the expression is to show polite address.

3. Body of the letter

The best body of the letter should consist three paragraphs. Each of them must have united feeling of idea. The three parts of the paragraph is used to express;
  • a) Preface or the purpose of sending the letter.
  • b) Point of the message or details of one's identity, and
  • c) Saying hopes or other term before saying good bye.

A letter will be better when it presents these following conditions, they are:
  • - a letter should be simple and use a direct language.
  • - The point of idea is served into each paragraphs.
  • - the point of Message should be written completely and neatly.
  • - using a suitable punctuation, like commas, fullstops, etc.

Take notice that the incorrect use of punctuation will affect the point of the message.

For example:

.......... I'm looking, forward to hearing you soon.

the expression above should be written like : /I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon/.

4. Complementary closing

For examples:


Yours sincerely,
Yours faithfully,
Best regards,
Yours truly, etc


When the receiver's name is known, use /yours sincerely/. Otherwise, use yours faithfully,



5. Signature and (or) name of the sender

When you go to the signature, place your complete name without using underline or bracket.