Writing a Business Letter
A business letter is a letter that is written to conduct some kind of business.
The business may be an application for a job, a complaint about a product or service, an inquiry, or a letter requesting some kind of action. It is different from a friendly letter in both its format and content.
A business letter should be typed. Use a word processing program and choose a plain font such as Courier or Times New Roman set to size 10 or 12. The left and right margins should be justified, meaning that text is aligned on both the right and left sides of the letter. In a business letter, all margins should be at least 1/2 inch, if not larger, and all text begins at the left margin.
The first part of a business letter, the HEADING, is located at the top of the page, starting at the left margin.
Type your address here.
If you are using business letterhead that already has the address, there is no need to retype this; otherwise, use your full mailing address, as it would appear on the envelope.
Do not include your name here, but if writing on behalf of a company, include its name:
Vacations R Us, Inc.
327 Happytime Street
Funville CA 55333
The second part of a business letter is the DATE.
Be sure to skip a line and then type the full date as follows.
This is an extremely important part of any business letter, as it may be used not only for later reference by you or the receiver, but may also be used for filing purposes.
September 15, 2000