Can You Format A Letter Properly?
Thursday 25 October 2007 @ 5:59 pm
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In my opinion one of the most unprofessional things that one can do is to send a poorly formatted letter. Doing such a thing is an instant credibility destroyer. Even if your letter is perfectly worded and devoid of grammatical and spelling errors; sending it out in a sloppy unprofessional format will always reflect badly on the sender.

That being said; are you aware that there is NO single international standard for formatting the three main groups of letters used in day-to-day life: business letters, business memos, and personal letters?

It turns out that, among the most sought-after info that visitors are looking for when they come to my Writing Help Central website is how-to properly format letters. In addition, I often receive e-mails from people asking such questions as:

What should I include in a signature block?
Where do I place the signature block?
How do I indicate attached documents?
Where do I position the address block(s)?
etc., etc…

As I stated above, there is NO ONE international standard for formatting letters. If you spend some time searching through textbooks at your library or bookstore, or checking out some online info sources you will come across many different ideas about what a properly formatted letter should look like; some reasonable and some questionable. In fact, you will find so many different formatting suggestions that you won’t know where to start.

I encountered this same multiple-choice conundrum a few years ago when I was conducting the research for my two general letter-writing toolkits: Instant Letter Writing Kit and Instant Business Letter Kit. So, what I did to sort things out was to review all of the reasonable letter layouts that I could find, and then I assessed them based on two main criteria: 1) most appealing overall appearance and, 2) most effective visual presentation impact.

What I arrived at in the end were three (3) distinct layout formats as follows:

1. Business letters – Full-block format
2. Business Memos – Full-block memo format
3. Personal letters – Semi-block (modified) format

Accordingly, these are the three standard formats that I have adopted and use in all of my Writing Help Toolkits. You can see a fully-formatted real-life example of each of these letter layouts at the following link:
http://www.writinghelp-central.com/letter-formats.html

— By Shaun Fawcett     PermaLink

13 Responses to “Can You Format A Letter Properly?”

  1. Thushika Says:
    October 25th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    Thank you So much Sir…..This info is really useful for me to study and do my official work.

  2. Waleed Says:
    October 26th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    Good Morning,

    Good article, but do you have any online free course for refreshing vocabularies and spellings?

    Thank you
    Best regards,
    Waleed Sawal
    Republic of Yemen

  3. Shaun Fawcett Says:
    October 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

    Thanks Waleed,

    You can sign up for any or all of my free courses at the following link:
    http://writinghelptools.com/all-courses.html

    Best…. Shaun

  4. Helene Says:
    November 3rd, 2007 at 3:21 am

    I would like to register for all your free courses.

    Regards,

  5. Shaun Fawcett Says:
    November 3rd, 2007 at 11:20 am

    Helene,

    As I already responded to Waleed above, you can register for any of my free courses
    BY CLICKING ON the following link:

    http://www.writinghelptools.com/all-courses.html

    Good luck… Shaun

  6. AMELIA Says:
    November 8th, 2007 at 6:55 am

    Hello Shaun…

    Really good article! How can I get the book, how to order the book (i.e. Toolkit for Business Letters - Writing Resumes)?
    Thanks.

  7. Shaun Fawcett Says:
    November 8th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    Hi Amelia,

    The best way to get one of my writing kits is to go to my main Writing Help Tools Website and decide which one best fits your needs and then click through to that site for more details. Once you have found what you want, just click on any one of the numerous Order Buttons and you will be taken to the Order Page: Here’s the link to the Writing Help Tools Website:
    http://writinghelptools.com

    Good luck…. Shaun

  8. Satish Waghmare Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 2:09 am

    Hello Sir; Its really a great article and very helpful. Keep on posting such articles!

    Thanks a lot

    Regards,
    Satish

  9. Beverly Says:
    November 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am

    Thanks for sharing this valuable information. They just don’t teach that in school anymore.

  10. eben Says:
    November 26th, 2007 at 11:03 am

    Thanks alot for these acticles; you always add something unique to my life. stay blessed always!

  11. Rita Says:
    November 28th, 2007 at 2:42 am

    Hi Mr shaun
    Thank you so much for your great article. It is very good info, tips, advice and templates that you have written. You help lot of people by doing this.

    Thanks again

  12. Beatrice Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 3:00 am

    Hi Mr Shaun,

    Your articles have been very informative and educational. Please keep it up. Lord is your strength.

  13. sajeev Says:
    January 16th, 2008 at 4:11 am

    Dear sirs,

    May God bless you always. Fantastic work you have done. Please accept my sincere congratulations. Please keep it up.

    Please keep me informed using my e-mail ID mentioned above.

    Thank you
    Sajeev