商务信件写作格式及方法Business Letter Writing

Business Letter Writing

Business Letter—layout

I. Basic Layout: Note the position of

1. Letterhead

2. The dateline

3. The opening (inside address)

4. The salutation

5. The body

6. The Closing

7. The signature and name

8. P.S. (Postscript)

There are two styles of composing letters. One is indented style, and the other is block style. Nowadays, block style is more popular especially in business world.

For indented style, you should indented 4 letters at the beginning of each paragraph, and you need not leave space between paragraphs. While for the block style, you need to leave space between paragraphs, but you need not indented 4 letters at the beginning. Just write along side.

1.. Letterhead

The letterhead is also called return address, which is the full address of the writer. It is typed in the upper right- hand corner of the first page. In business world, letterhead is normally printed on the top of the letter paper in the middle. Thus you need not to write it again. Just write the date. For personal letter, you also need not to write the letterhead.

Notes for letterhead:

1)You should be aware of the order you write letterhead is just reversed from that in

Chinese ,i.e., from the smallest unit to the biggest unit. For example, the number of the room, number of the building, number of the street, city, province and then the country.

2. Dates

Be careful!

In China the 14th April 2003 is written 2003/04/14

In England the 14th April 2003 is written 14/4/2003 or 14/04/2003

In America the 14th April 2003 is written 4/14/2003 or 04/14/2003

It is probably safest to write 14th April, 2003 or April 14, 2003

3. The opening

The opening is also called the inside address, which is the address exactly the same as that on envelope. The opening goes above the salutation on the left, which is

always omitted in personal letters. The order of the inside address is the same as the order of letterhead. While in business world, if you know the receivers’ name and position, you should write them before the company name and address.

4. The salutation

The salutation is the greeting, which goes one or two spaces below the opening at the left-hand margin. Usually it is best to say “Dear…” if you know the name of the receiver, or just “Dear Sir/Madam” if you do not know the receiver’s name. Then you should use a comma (,) or nothing. We Chinese normally use a colon (:)

After the salutation, while, in English letter, colon should not be used. It is not correct.

In salutation, you still should pay much attention to the title, Mr. for male, Mrs., Miss, Ms. For female. They should be followed by surname, family name. For example, Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown (husband’s surname), Ms. Smith, Miss White etc. Note: In China, people always address the title of one’s position, such as manager, director, and teacher etc. In English, however, these are not the addressing. It is not correctly used that you write “Dear Teacher Zhang”, “ Dear Manager Yang”, and so on and so forth.

5.The body

It is the most important part of the letter—the content of the letter. It is one or two spaces bellow the salutation. The length of the line should be adjusted to the length of the paper. Leave margins on either side. The paragraph should be blocked or indented, according to the style chosen. Usually it is single—spaced for a business letter. It usually consists of at least two paragraphs—even if the second paragraph is nothing more than “ Thanks and best wishes to you,” or something. It contains introduction, purpose and conclusion in the body of the letters.

6.The closing

It is the way of saying goodbye. In business writing, it is always the complimentary closing. There are various of words to choose in English closing. It should match the tone established by the salutation and carried through the body of the letter. It is usually two spaces bellow the body of the letter, together with the signature group.

How a letter is closed depends on how it is opened. The closing should match the opening. If you use a comma (,) after the salutation, you should use a comma after the closing. If you use nothing after the salutation, you also should use nothing after the closing.