When business letters are written on company letterhead stationery, they are generally formatted in a full block style with each part of the letter justified to the left margin. Show
Letters not on company letterhead stationery are written in a modified block style with the heading, date and complimentary close left justified to the center line and the inside address, salutation and body justified to the left margin. When a business letter requires more than one page, the secondary pages should have a header that includes the recipient's name, the page number and the date. Elements of a Business LetterThe elements of a business letter are:
Heading
The Inside Address
The Salutation
The Body
The Complimentary Close
The Additional NotationA number of situations call for a business letter to be marked with notations signifying those situations. These notations should be placed two spaces below the position or title line following the writer's printed signature. When a letter references one or more documents that are enclosed by the writer for the recipient, the enclosure is noted in one of the following ways:
When a letter has been dictated to an assistant it should be initialed. Both writer and assistant are acknowledged with their personal initials. The writer's will appear in uppercase letters and the assistant's will appear in lowercase letters in one of the following ways: When copies of a letter are sent to named business associates or other interested parties, the copy recipients are acknowledged with their full name as in the following example.
Citation InformationPeter Connor. (1994-2023). Business Letters: Format. The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/resources/writing/guides/. Copyright InformationCopyright © 1994-2023 Colorado State University and/or this site's authors, developers, and contributors. Some material displayed on this site is used with permission. Where should your name appear on a business letter?Signature. Leave two to four lines between the closing line and typing your name so that you can sign the business letter. Your name should be your first, middle initial (if you have one) and your last name.
How many times do you enter spaces after the date in a business letter?The inside address contains the mailing information belonging to the recipient and should be justified to the left margin of the letter and placed two spaces below the date (for very short letters four spaces is acceptable).
How many times do you space after the date and complimentary closing in a business letter?In Sample 2, you will see that there are two spaces between the address and the date; three spaces between the address and the salutation; two spaces between the salutation and the first body paragraph; two spaces between first, second, and closing body paragraphs; two spaces between the body, the complimentary close, ...
How many letters are in business?In this article, we discuss the 15 different types of business letters and explore the common components of such letters.
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