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hello everyone and welcome back to another video today we're going to look at the topic the business letter however this video will seek to give an overview about the business letter but i'll be going in greater details with each type of business letter in subsequent videos now what exactly is the business letter a business letter is a formal document often sent from one company to another or from a company to its clients employees and stakeholders now stakeholders are basically persons or organizations who have an interest within a business so it could be apart from clients and employees it could be suppliers or the government now we need to look at the structure of a business letter in order to appreciate it a bit better now the business letter consists of the following parts in the order in which they appear it starts off with the letterhead that is normally found in the header of the document sometimes a company well nowadays the companies are placing their letterhead in the header but how you would have learned about letter preparation years gone back where you can also put this information outside of the header but it's the first thing that is written on the document it starts off with the sender's name followed by the return address now the sender's name can either be the name of a person or a company and the return address has embedded in it the location of the business as well as the telephone and fax numbers and the email address or website if there are any this is followed by the reference now the reference is made up of characters that are used to identify locate and file the correspondence our reference written as oref consists of the writer's initial and those of the typist example dbw jd the reference may sometimes include details of a file number or customer's account number as you see in the example the reference shown on any incoming letter should be included in the letter of reply against the words your ref so if it is that we're typing a letter you will normally see or with on it and if it is that you get a documented type and there's one reference that one reference will normally be our reference right sometimes you'll see the word oref or you'll just see the word reference but that is from the perspective of the organization and if it is that we are responding to a letter that was sent to our organization by another organization then we'll normally use the term your reference or your riff and this will indicate that we are making reference to the document that was sent to us by their organization all right next we will have the date and the date must always be typed on a letter even if you are not given instructions to include it in such cases a current date is used so if you go into the exam for instance and you're supposed to be typing a letter a document that needs to have a date and you're not seeing a date on it use the current date make sure you put it on it all right there can't be a letter without a date that is of key importance so ensure that if you're typing it you use the current date which would have been the date of your exam following that we have something known as special instructions or mailing or addressing notation and this basically is any special instruction that we want to pass out to persons such as personal private confidential urgent or anything of the sort all right and this should be typed above the name and address of the recipient now we'll have the inside name and address otherwise known as the recipient's name and address this is the name and address of the individual or organization to whom the letter is being sent and it should always be included these details are usually typed above the salutation the attention line now some business organizations like all correspondents to be addressed to the company rather than to individuals in such cases it is usual to include an attention line to ensure that a letter is directed to the appropriate department or individual example for the attention of mrs j samuel sales department or attention of mr garner maxwell no this is very important right because as was said earlier sometimes the correspondence may be addressed to a company and not to a specific individual and if it is that this document gets to that um organization then having an attention line will zoom in on who exactly should peruse this document sometimes you'll also have some documents going to an educational institution and as such it will be addressed to the principal however it is not intended for the principle per se but may be intended for the guidance counselor or a specific department and as such the attention line is key in directing the principle in knowing who should get this correspondence now look at the salutation now this basically is the opening word of greeting in a letter and it comes in many forms according to the type of letter that is being typed right so we have the formal and the informal letter right the formal letter is otherwise known as the business letter and it's suitable for official or professional communication and this follows a set format we also have we will have the informal letter otherwise known as a personal letter that is more casual or personal right and does not have a set structure now here we have the information as it relates to the formal letter now the two ways of addressing a formal letter we have where we know the person who we are sending a letter to or where we do not know the person to whom the letter has been addressed so if we do not know the name of the person to whom the letter has been addressed there are certain salutations that are used so we use dear sir when we're speaking about one person who is a male dear madame one person who is a female they are sir or madame one person whose gender is not known example the principle then we have dear sirs we are two or more males of an organization are being referred to we have ladies where two or more females of an organization have been referred to we use the term gentlemen when we're speaking about males of a club or association now when we do know the names of the person to whom this letter is being addressed we use a term dear mr reed if it's a male we use a term dear mrs cut if it's a married female they're miss walker if the female is not married and dear miss ms clark if the marital status is unknown and please note the distinction between m-i-s-s versus ms we use m-i-s-s for miss if the female is not married but if we do not know the female is married or not we use the abbreviation ms which is the same miss but written differently if the marital status is unknown now we look at the informal salutation so some informal salutations and remember these are used not for personal or casual letters dear mr smith dear miss brown miss daley miss frank dear customer dear hope don or my dear hope done now following the salutation we will have the subject heading a subject heading is sometimes used to help the reader to identify the content of the letter and to help in filing or in finding a particular letter in a correspondence file so it allows a person to zoom in on the key point of this letter by reading a subject heading you are able to know what the body of the letter is all about and that will take us now to the body of the letter which consists of the message to be conveyed it is typed in paragraphs which includes the opening introduction the main message and the closing following that we will have the complementary clues now the most commonly used form of complementary clues are yours faithfully yours truly yours sincerely and sincerely yours now please note that the complementary clause goes with the salutation so you do not just attach yours faithfully or you are sincerely to a letter just because you feel like writing that at that time you have to look at what the salutation is and use the complementary clues that goes along with it so i have here yours faithfully should be used where the formal salutation for example dear sir or dear madam begins the letter letters that start with a person's name example dear mr white usually ends with yours sincerely or sincerely yours and then we reserve yours truly for circular letters although yours truly can still be used but i realize that for a couple of years now their prefer um exam prefer you to write your speech fully rather than yours truly for such letters all right so let me go through that again when you do not know the name of the person that the letter has been addressed to when you use their salutation their sir or dear madame or their sirs you use the complimentary clothes yours faithfully and when you know the name of the person to whom the letter is being addressed you use yours sincerely or sincerely yours hopefully that help now following the complementary clause we will have the complement they were closed for the informal letter right so that was for the formal for the informal letter no some complimentary clues that are used best wishes kindest regards regards best regards or cordially and you have some very formal letters and we'll use terms yours sincerely respectfully yours or respectfully to close off with those no immediately following the complementary clause we will have the name of the organization now this is optional as not all letters will have it we will then have four to six spaces based on the length of the letter and they will have the signature of the writer now this section is usually signed by the person writing a letter or the letter is signed by someone authorized to sign in place of the writer the signatory or name of the writer comes next and this is because it is very difficult to decipher some signatures and so it is usual to type the name of the person signing a letter following that we'll have the designation or job title and department should be and this should be typed immediately below the name however it is optional the enclosure notation or attachment comes next attention is drawn to any material to be enclosed with the letter by typing an enclosure notation the abbreviation enc encl or att is used now please note that for exam purposes for example you are given a letter and a letter will not always say to you to write the enclosure but if it is that you are drafting a letter and you realize from the body of the letter that um it is stated that something should be attached then that should be a clue that you are expected to put an attachment at the bottom of the letter all right so please note that because you normally will get marks for that so it may not be stated to you to do it but if it is alluded or made mention of in the body of the letter then you are expected to have an attachment at the end of your letter [Applause] now we look at the copy notation a courtesy copy notation showing the distribution of the letter appears below the enclosure notation cc meaning copied to our copies now all persons receiving the letter in addition to the addressee are listed with that and i have an example here cc britney allen moya whittaker which simply means that apart from the person who is assigned to receive this letter this letter was also sent to these two additional persons and finally we'll have something known as a post script now postscripts basically additions to the letter after it has been typed or items needing emphasis appears below the last line of courtesy copy notation the initials ps or pps are used i will now look at the format of the business letter and bring into consideration all that i've just mentioned a while ago all right here i have an outline of a business letter starting off with the sender's name and return address and as you see this is not written in the letterhead however it is written the first thing that is written on the document all right however i have a video teaching you how to do a letterhead and i'll attach that at the end of this video because for this subject you are taught to do these letters with the letterhead following that we have the reference right and you realize that there's only one reference here so this is the over reference the date follows followed by the addressee notation this one it says says urgent the address the name the principal and the address the attention line the salutation dear sir followed by the subject heading all right note also the document is spaced and i'll be teaching you in my next video how to construct these business letters with the appropriate spacing so do not worry about how you're seeing the document right now everything will come together once we start typing so we have the paragraph followed by the complementary clause immediately after that we have the name of the organization which i said was optional we would then have four to six spaces based on the length of the letter then you'll have the signature then we have the name of the writer the job title the department that the person is a part of the reference initials the enclosure notation the copy notation so it is said that apart from the principle that this um document is addressed to the sales manager will also have gotten a copy of it and finally we have the postscript right which is something additional that was not stated in the body of the letter and from this example it says a special room should be made available for the demonstration all right so that is basically an entire letter that is typed all right so know that we have gone through the entire structure of the business letter we now need to know what margins to use in constructing it now i have here two paper sizes a4 and a5 and the margins that are used so for the a4 paper we have the top margin can be one or two inches the left margin can be 1 or 1.5 inches the right and the bottom margins are one inch but if it is that you think that you may not remember how to construct these margins when it's time for you to do your document right the question will normally tell you but if it doesn't then you can use one inch all around or 1.5 left and one inch everywhere else top right and bottom and for the a5 paper right 0.5 inch or 1 inch for the top 1 inch or 0.75 for the left 1 inch or 0.5 for the right bottom 1 inch if you think you will not be able to remember this right then you can use one inch all around all right now i'm going to look at the layout of a business letter now there are three main styles of layout in the current use of business letters we have the blocks style otherwise known as the fully blocked style and this is the most modern simple and effective layout where all the elements are aligned to the left margin the example that was just shown to you was an example of the blocked style we then have the semi-block style that is partially blocked with some of the elements aligned to the right or the center of the page and finally the indented style letter where the first line of each paragraph is indented with certain elements being placed in the left margin or in the center of the page well guys that is it on the well a basic overview of the business letter i'll be doing other videos to now teach you about the various layers of the business letter the blocked semi-blocked and indented style i do hope you learned a lot here today and see you in my next upload but do not forget to like share and to subscribe to my channel if you have not yet done so thanks for watching bye