Gamma Iota Sigma
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Standards on Writing Business Letters1.
The Professional letter The
professional letter should be centered on the page, with equal margins on the sides and at
the top and bottom; consistently follow a standard pattern of indentation and punctuation.
The Times New Roman using either 10 or 12 point is the acceptable business letter type and
font. 2.
Continuing to a second page If a letter
must be continued to a second page arrange your material so that at least three lines will
appear on the second page. Never complete
the body of a letter on one page and place the closing and signature on the next page. The first line of the second page of a business letter on
8-1/2" X 11" stationary should be about two inches from the top of the page. The page number should be centered about four
lines above the first line of writing. 3.
Make the parts of the letter conform to standard practice: a.
Heading: When
you write a business letter without formal letterhead paper, you must supply a complete
heading, including: line 1) street address line 2) city and state, with a comma between (zone number) line 3) date, with a comma between day and year. If you use abbreviations,
use them consistently. b.
Inside Address:
Give the name of the person or the firm (or both) to whom you are writing
and the address with a comma between city and state.
Ordinarily, the inside address is placed four lines below the heading or
date and flush with the left-hand margin. c.
Salutation: The
greeting is placed below the inside address (two lines on the typewriter) and flush with
the left-hand margin. In business letters it
is always followed by a colon. If you are
writing to a specific person, but know only their official position and not their name,
the correct salutation is "Dear Sir:," or "Dear Ms:" d.
The Body: The
first line of the body of a business letter is placed two typewriter spaces below the
salutation. It may be indented either the
usual five spaces of a typed manuscript or as far as the length of the salutation. Subsequent paragraph indentations will be uniform
with the first one. e.
The Closing:
The closing is begun just to the right of the middle of the page and is
followed by a comma. Only the first word is
capitalized. f.
The Signature:
The signature is written in ink immediately below the closing and flush with
it. Directly below the signature the writer's
name may be typewritten. This typewritten
repetition of the writer's name may be accompanied by his official position. 4.
Folding the letter The folding
of a letter is determined by the size of the envelope.
If a letter written on standard 8-1/2" X 11" stationery is to be
placed in a long envelope, the letter is folded twice; up from the bottom about a third of
the way, then down from the top so that when unfolded it will be right side up. If it is to be placed in a small envelope, the
letter should be folded up from the bottom to within a quarter of an inch of the top; then
the right side is folded over a third of the way and the left side folded over upon that
fold. Insert the letter in the envelope with
the fold at the bottom of the envelope. Samples of a
business letter appear on the following pages. |