Letter writing

Many people include a letter as part of their portfolio. Let’s look at letter writing now. There are many acceptable ways to write letters, and many of the ‘rules’ of the past have been relaxed. However, the following points still apply. Letters should contain:

Your Address
Your address usually goes at the top right-hand corner of the letter.

The Date
You should place the date underneath your own address.

The Name and Address of the person you’re writing to (The recipient)
This usually goes on the left-hand side of the letter, one line below where you’ve put the date. If you don’t know the person’s name, you would usually put their job title.

A Greeting or Salutation
If you know the name of the person you’re writing to, you should put it here. In a formal letter you should usually refer to someone as Mr, Ms or Mrs and avoid using first names. If you don’t know the person’s name, you would usually refer to them as Sir or Madam. When writing to the press, it is traditional always to use the salutation Dear Sir.

Subject Heading
Some letters contain a subject heading – a line of text after the salutation to introduce the theme or subject of the letter. This can be written in bold letters, IN FULL CAPITALS, or With Initial Capital Letters. Bold letters are the most common.