How to Write a Letter

How to Write a Letter

Our grandparents and great-grandparents wrote letters all the time: to their friends and families, to the bank manager, to express condolences, to complain, to invite someone to visit, to accept an invitation and to thank people for hospitality or gifts. Nowadays, we don’t need to write letters very often and it’s become a dying art. Emails, Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging mean that we can stay in touch all the time. There are still, however, times when writing a letter is appropriate, and it’s good to know when, and how to write one.

This page explains different types of letters, from informal to formal, and how to write each one. On this page, we are talking about writing letters that will be sent by post - snail mail - not by email. Most of the letters described on this page should never be sent by email. The only exception is for a job application, where you should attach a formal letter to a covering email.

The General Structure of a Letter A formal letter has a standard structure, which is:

Your full address

Date of the letter

Name of the person to whom you are writing Their full postal address Dear [Name of recipient], The subject of the letter The text of the letter Yours sincerely, [Sign in this space] [Your full name] ([your title: Mr, Mrs, Ms]) If you are writing an informal letter, you may omit the recipient’s name and address, and you may also sign it off more informally: ‘With love’, or ‘With best wishes’, rather than ‘Yours sincerely’, and sign with just your first name, omitting your surname and title. Forms for signing off a letter vary depending on how you addressed it. The rule is that if you addressed it ‘Dear Sir’, then you sign off ‘Yours faithfully’, and if you addressed the person by name, then you sign off ‘Yours sincerely’. What if you don’t know the name of the person to whom you are writing? This might arise, for example, if you want to send a letter or a complaint to a company, and you have been told to “just send it to the Customer Service Department”. Your options are: Start the letter with ‘To Whom it may Concern’. This does not feel very personal, but it fits with what you’ve been told to do. Address the letter to ‘Head of Customer Service’ at the company address, then use ‘Dear Sir’. ‘Dear Sir’ is technically the correct form when you do not know the name of the person, but many people prefer ‘Dear Sir or Madam’. Google the name of the person who heads that department, and use their name. If you are writing to a big company, this information should be publicly available, and there is no excuse for not finding and using it. If the company conceals the name of the person responsible for customer service, then it seems entirely reasonable to send your complaint direct to the CEO. Why does this matter? Because letters that are personally addressed are likely to get through quicker, and also get more personal attention. The only exception is if you are writing to the editor of a newspaper, in which case you always write ‘Dear Sir’. The form to use on the envelope is ‘The Editor’, then the name and address of the newspaper.