Everyday Letters for Busy People

289 Pages·2011·3 MB·English

E
v e r y d a y
L
etters
for
B P
usy eople
R E
EVISED DITION
Hundreds of Samples You Can
Adapt at a Moment’s Notice:
(cid:1)Invitations and Resignations
(cid:1)
Complaints and Condolences
(cid:1)
E-mail and Snail Mail
(cid:1)
and more
Debra Hart May
and
Regina McAloney
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Copyright © 2004 by The Career Press, Inc.
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conven-
tions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any
means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any in-
formation storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without
written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.
EVERYDAY LETTERS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, REVISED EDITION
EDITED BY CLAYTON W. LEADBETTER
TYPESET BY EILEEN DOW MUNSON
Cover design by Foster & Foster, Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press
To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-
848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books
from Career Press.
The Career Press, Inc., 3 Tice Road, PO Box 687,
Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417
www.careerpress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
May, Debra Hart, 1961-
Everyday letters for busy people : hundreds of samples you can adapt at a moment’s
notice : invitations and resignations, complaints and condolences, e-mail and snail mail,
and more / by Debra Hart May & Regina McAloney.— Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-56414-712-6 (pbk.)
1. English language—Rhetoric—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Letter writing—Handbooks,
manuals, etc. 3. Form letters—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. McAloney, Regina. II. Title.
PE1483.M32 2004
808.6—dc22
2003061324
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(cid:1)
To Debra’s husband,
Mark,
(cid:1)
and to Regina’s grandmother,
Josephine,
a devoted letter writer.
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This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Why Read This Book?
Chapter 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
When Is a Letter the Best Way to Communicate?
Chapter 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Advice and Etiquette for E-mail Enthusiasts
Chapter 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Tips for Drafting a Letter Quickly
Chapter 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Entice Your Reader to Read—From Beginning to End
Chapter 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Parts of a Letter
Chapter 6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Forms of Address
Chapter 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Letter and Envelope Formats
Chapter 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Templates for Successful Letters and E-mails
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Sample Letters and E-mail Messages
Job and Career Letters and E-mails. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Post-Secondary School Admissions Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Parent-School Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Consumer Letters and E-mails. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Letters for Banking and Credit Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Letters for Medical and Insurance Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Letters to Government Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Letters and E-mails to U.S., State, or Local
Government Officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Letters About Real Estate and Legal Concerns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Community Action and Fund-Raising Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Letters and E-mails to the Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Social Letters and E-mails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Index of Sample Letters and E-mail Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
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I
NTRODUCTION
Why Read This Book?
Many books give you advice about how to write a good letter. A lot of books
even offer sample letters from which you can borrow lines or use in their entirety.
This book, however, not only offers advice and lots of sample letters, it gives you
tips and samples that fit realistic, familiar occasions for writing a letter—from
personal business (such as expressing a complaint, writing to the editor of a publi-
cation, or inquiring about insurance) to social concerns (such as making an an-
nouncement, expressing regret, or extending an invitation).
This book also helps you answer one of the most pressing questions in this age
of electronic communication: When is it appropriate, or perhaps more worthwhile,
to send electronic mail instead of a letter? We not only answer this question but
supply you with sample e-mail messages designed to engage their recipients and
get results. In fact, all of the samples in this book were crafted not to be flowery or
clever, but to help you accomplish your purpose for writing in the first place. We
figure that if you’re taking the time to pull a letter together (or just to find the
right ready-made letter), you want it to be effective.
Beyond that, if writing is a task you find challenging or don’t enjoy, you’ve
picked the right book. This book offers much more than samples, which, let’s face
it, may not always work for you; it provides suggestions that can help you fly solo.
When you need to write all or just a part of a letter or e-mail message on your
own, this book can help in four ways:
1. It provides templates, or step-by-step guidelines, for composing dif-
ferent types of letters or e-mails. Whatever your situation, the corre-
sponding template can help you decide how to begin, develop, and
end a truly effective message.
2. Marginal notes next to each sample letter or e-mail help you see how
the sample conforms to a particular template.
3. Checklists help you make sure you’ve covered aspects critical to suc-
ceeding with each type of letter or e-mail.
7
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Everyday Letters for Busy People
4. A simple five-step formula helps you quickly decide—before you be-
gin writing—what you want your letter or e-mail to accomplish and
what the recipient will most want to read.
Please note that all of the names, addresses, zip codes, phone numbers, and
scenarios used in the samples in this book are fictitious. Only the addresses of U.S.
government agencies are real. (Names of government officials, however, are not.)
Also note that the sample letters appear in the format appropriate for stationery
without letterhead. When you use letterhead, omit your name and address if the
sample directs you to include them.
Whether you decide to use parts of the samples that this book provides or
start from scratch, the advice that follows can help you get the most out of the
time you spend writing a letter or typing an e-mail.
8
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C 1
HAPTER
When Is a Letter the Best
Way to Communicate?
Hardly anyone writes letters anymore. Most of us, when we need to voice a
complaint, express appreciation, or handle almost any personal business matter,
either pick up the phone or log into our e-mail account. Typically, placing a call
takes less time and effort than sitting down to compose a letter. What’s more, e-mail
has all but replaced letter-writing, and even phone calls, as the standard way to
communicate quickly with customer service departments, product manufacturers,
government entities, and organizations of all sorts. In fact, to instantly post what
we need to say, we can usually just click a “Contact us” button on these organiza-
tions’ Websites.
Social situations, too, seem to simply require a telephone call or a text message.
And what about sending an e-card, an e-invitation, or a social announcement by
e-mail? At the most, a regular greeting card is enough, isn’t it? After all, hardly a
social situation exists for which we can’t find a card these days. But before you click
on that “Send” button or visit the local card shop, here are a few things to consider.
The changing status of letters
The swiftness and ease of e-mails and phone calls, not to mention the fact that
they don’t require postage, seem to have diminished the role of letter-writing in
modern life. Job seekers now transmit resumes and thank-you notes via the Internet;
family members send one another e-greetings for holidays, special occasions, or
just to say “Hi”; brides and grooms broadcast rehearsal night details with the help
of mass e-mails. Indeed, e-mail, pagers, text messaging, faxes, and phones have
taken the hassle and cost out of many a task.
On the other hand, the popularity of electronic communication has also given
letter-writing a newfound privileged status. In some situations, no electronic mes-
sage says “business” the way a signed, carefully crafted memo on official letter-
head can. Nor does e-mail express emotion and personality the way our penmanship
and personal stationery can. What we gain in formality and artistry, we sometimes
lose in convenience.
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