THE BUSINESS LETTER

BUSINESS LETTER (or Business Correspondence)

- A message that attempts to influence its reader to take some action or attitude desired by the
writer
o In other words, the correspondent tries to get his reader to agree with him; this attempt
at agreement should always be part of the letter, whether the desired result is of
immediate importance such as the collection of a bill, or an intangible attitude like
goodwill.
- Any type of letter can be judged in terms of how successfully it gains agreement from the
reader.
o The successful sales message gets its reader to agree that a product or service is worth
buying.
o The collection letter, to be effective, should convince the debtor that payment of his bill
is the wisest action.
o The application letter attempts to win agreement from the prospective employer that
the applicant is well-qualified to get the job for which he applies.

PARTS OF THE BUSINESS LETTER

1. Heading
2. Date Line
3. Inside Address
4. Salutation (or Greeting)
5. Body
6. Closing (or Complimentary Close)
7. Signature Line
8. Notations

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 DAFO’S PET SHOP
21 Gugo Street, Lima, Rizal
346-7890/709-4523

November 7, 2007

Mrs. Lilia F. Tinio

35 Virgin Street, Nova Hills
Marikina, Rizal

Dear Mrs. Tinio:

Please refer to your bill dated October 15, 2007, to Dafo’s Pet Shop
in the amount of P900.00. Our records show our company did not deliver
the questionable feeds chemicals which we are supposed to make
adjustment for.
I shall appreciate your documenting the bill soon.

Very truly yours,

Daffodil P. Sales
Proprietor, Dafo’s Pet Shop

ST:BL

1. HEADING
- 2 Types of Heading
a. Traditional Heading
o Placed at the upper right-hand side of the paper
o It contains the writer’s complete address and the date of the letter.
o Example:
38 Susano Street
Cubao, Quezon City
June 6, 2007

b. Modern Heading (or Letterhead)

o Placed around five spaces from the top margin
o It is seen only on the first page of a double or multiple-page letter.
o It contains the following primary information:
▪ Full name of the business
▪ Full address

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 ▪ Telephone number
▪ Nature of the business of the company sending the letter
o It contains the following secondary information
▪ Names of one or more officers
▪ Telex number (telex - communications system: a communications system using
teletypewriters that communicate via telephone lines)
▪ Logo
▪ Corporate subsidiaries (subsidiary - 1. somebody or something auxiliary:
somebody or something that occupies a secondary or subordinate position
2. part of larger company: a company controlled or owned by a larger one)
o Example:
DAFO’S PET SHOP
21 Gugo Street, Lima, Rizal
346-7898/567-5490
o With the many artistic designs of letterheads, some consider this both an information
giving part and an ornamental feature of a letter.
▪ However, the best kind of a letterhead is one that has a simple design.
▪ An elaborate letterhead tends to grab the reader’s attention from the central
message of the letter.
▪ Since the letterhead projects a corporate image and, somehow, affects the
reader’s understanding of the message of the letter, some companies take
much care and time in finalizing the appearance of the letterhead to represent
the company.
▪ As a matter of fact, some companies launch a money-spending contest on
company logo and letterhead designing.

2. DATE LINE
- Second part of a business letter
- Typed two or four spaces below the letterhead
- Two standard ways of writing the date:
a. American Way
o May 2, 1999
b. British Way
o 2 May 1996
- More ways are used by other business correspondents, but whatever style you choose, the
usual procedure calls for one punctuation mark, the comma after the day (July 4, 1997) and for
the non-abbreviation of the name of the month.
- Example:
DAFO’S PET SHOP
21 Gugo Street, Lima, Rizal
346-7898/567-5490

May 2, 2007

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3. INSIDE ADDRESS
- The address of the writer is found in the Heading.
- The address of the recipient is in the Inside Address.
- Written four to eight spaces below the Date Line on the left margin
- Normally, if this consists of three to four lines, the first line presents the name of the person or
company and the individual or official corporate title of the like: Miss, Mrs. Atty., Dr., President,
Manager.
- Example:
Mrs. Lina G. Rabe, Manager Atty. Rey T. Reyla, President
Nova Enterprises Pasay Steel Corporation
45 Taft Avenue, Manila 81 Session Road, Baguio City

Reminders on the proper way of writing titles:

a. Address an individual the way he usually signs his name.
b. Avoid abbreviating Christian names, corporation, company, and official positions or ranks,
like:
o Sergeant, Treasurer, Secretary, Sales Manager, Director
o Often, titles of courtesy precede name, such as:
▪ Dr. / Mrs. / Mr. / Reverend
▪ The Honorable
▪ His Eminence/Grace/Excellency
• Business or other official title may follow
• Vice President for Marketing
• Archbishop of New York
c. You may abbreviate titles like Honorable, Reverend, Professor.
o But in formal letters, it is preferable to write these in full.
d. Include the article “The” before the company name, if it is naturally a part of the name like
The Dean’s Café or The Manileñan Ladies Circle.
e. Write the titles Honorable, Reverend in full if the article The precedes them, like he
Reverend Jose P. Gomez, not The Rev. Jose P. Gomez.
f. Use the titles Honorable, Reverend, Professor, and Superintendent before full names, not
before a last name, like—Professor Juliet J. Sales, Honorable Orly D. Pecson, not Professor
Ramos, Honorable Daza.
g. Use small letters in writing the article The in “the Reverend Lino H. Peterno” or “the
Honorable Nestor G. Torres” if the article is preceded by other words in the sentence, such
as in the sentence, “Everybody stood up to greet the Honorable Jose P. Laurel.”

4. SALUTATION (or GREETING)

- The fourth part
- Written on the left margin, two to four spaces below the Inside Address
- Its purpose is to cheer up or greet the addressee with the use of positive words like Dear,
Dearest, My Dear.
- You cannot just use any greeting you want.
o The degree of formality tells you which greeting to use.
o The most formal salutations for top ranking government officials are Sir and Madam.
▪ My dear Ambassador (Very formal)
o Lower than these are Dear Sir or Dear Ma’am and.

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 ▪ Dear Mr. Johnson:
▪ Dear Mr. President:
o For friendly, intimate and informal relationships, you my use My dear Cora, Dear Peter,
Dear Helen, and the like.
- In most business letters, the Salutation is followed by a colon (:).
o In informal or friendly letters, by a comma (,).
o These two marks, colon and comma, are the only punctuation marks used after the
Salutation.
- Gentlemen is the Salutation for letters addressed to a company, club, committee, and other
organizations composed of males or of both males and females.
- Ladies is the Salutation for organizations exclusively for females.
a. Attention Line
o However, if there is a particular person whom you want to read the letter addressed to
the company, this person’s name may be written in the Attention Line, a secondary
letter part considered as an extension of the Inside Address.
▪ The positions of the Attention Line are:
(1) between the Inside Address and the Salutation

DAPO PET SHOP

34 Susano Street
Nova Hills, Baguio City

Attention: Miss Daffodil L. Lopez

Gentlemen:

(2) opposite the Salutation

DAPO PET SHOP

34 Susano Street
Nova Hills, Baguio City

Gentlemen: Attention: Miss Daffodil L. Lopez

- These are also Salutations, like To Our Dealers, To the PTA Members, Dear Customers, that are
situated at the upper center of the bond paper.
o These kinds of Salutations are good for formal letters and letters making an
announcement to a group of people
o In addition to these generic salutations is this commonly used form—To Whom It May
Concern.
▪ Although, nowadays, some consider this as the least effective generic
salutation; many reason out that since the use of this has been the standard for
generations, it is still appropriate in business letter writing even up to this time.

b. Subject Line
o Another secondary part of a letter found in the area of the salutation is the Subject Line
placed two spaces below the Greeting.

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 ▪ In a modified block letter, it is usually centered, and in block letters it’s at the
left margin.
o Serving as the title of the letter, the Subject Line states the purpose or topic of the letter
in a short sentence.
o Examples:

Mrs. Wanda P. Lazo, President

Dafo Textile Company
57 Talon Street, Caloocan City

Dear Mrs. Lazo:

Subject: The delivery of our order no. 8975 of May 2, 1997

The goods we ordered were not delivered to the place

indicated in the Bill of Lading.

Filipinas Bank
54 Real Street
Intramuros, Manila

Gentlemen: Subject: The delivery of our order no. 897

of June 5, 1997

The goods we ordered did not arrive at the time agreed

upon.

5. BODY
- The fifth and the biggest part
- This begins two spaces below the Salutation.
- The spacing is double between the paragraphs of the letter.
- It is in this part where you may convey all the messages you want your reader to understand.
o Of course, to do this, you have to apply the 8 C’s of a letter.

6. CLOSING (or COMPLIMENTARY CLOSE)

- The sixth part
- It is typed 2 to 4 spaces below the Body.
- Unlike the Salutation that uses two punctuation marks, comma and colon, the Closing uses only
one mark, the comma.
- If the closing is of several words, only the first word should be capitalized.
- The choosing of a Complimentary Close also considers the degree of formality.
o Below are some of the most commonly used closings that range from formal to
informal:

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 Very formal
▪ Very respectfully yours,
▪ Respectfully yours,
▪ Very truly yours,
Formal
▪ Yours truly, Truly yours, (Somewhat cold)
▪ Sincerely yours,
▪ Sincerely,
▪ Cordially yours,
▪ Cordially
Informal
▪ Best wishes,
▪ Kindest regards,

7. SIGNATURE LINE
- The seventh part
- In business letters, two signatures are needed:
a. The printed signature
o The typewritten signature is typed four spaces below the complimentary close.
o It is four spaces because the other two spaces are for the penned signature of the writer
and for the fully capitalized name of the country represented by the writer.
o The name of the company may be placed between the complimentary close and the
penned signature.
▪ If the name of the company is in the letterhead, you may do away with the
typewritten signature.
b. The penned signature
- With regard to signature of women, consider the following assumptions:
o It is assumed that a surname preceded by initials belongs to a man.
▪ J.K. Rowling
▪ J.R.R. Tolkien
▪ J.D. Salinger
o It is assumed that a name not preceded by Miss or Mrs. always means a name of an
unmarried woman.

8. NOTATIONS
- The last part
- The following are the notations that come two spaces below the Signature Line:
a. Identification Initials
o Initials of the writer or dictator and the typist or transcriber.
o A colon or slash mark is used to separate the two kinds of initials (e.g. KM ly, KM:LY, or
KM/LY).
b. Enclosure
o Sometimes there are some important documents or papers that the writer would like to
attach to the letter.
▪ The inclusion of these are made to the reader by the explicit statement of these
papers in the body of the letter and in the enclosure, a notation written two
spaces below the initials of the dictator and the typist

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 o It uses the word Enclosure or the abbreviated form—Enc.
▪ For example:
VM: DR

Enc.

Resume
c. Carbon Copy
o Notation found two spaces below the last line of the signature
o Its purpose is to let the reader know that a copy of the letter is sent to another person
whose name is not mentioned in the address
o The term Carbon Copy of the symbol CC may then be written for this kind of notation,
and following CC or Carbon Copy is the full name and official corporate position of the
other recipient.
o For example:

Sincerely yours,

Miss Myla B. Sarabia

Manager, Personnel Department

CC. Mr. Leo G. Torres

d. Blind Copy
o If the writer, in confidence, decides to give a copy of the letter to a person not referred
to in the address, he may note this as “blind carbon copy” or bcc on the copy for the
“secret” recipient.
o This bcc is not reflected in the original.
o Actually, though they are noted as carbon copies, they may not be, at all times, carbon.
▪ They may be photographic or xeroxed copies.
e. Postscript or P.S.
o May be added after the last notation
o It serves as a device for emphasis.
o Two spaces below the Identification Initials or two spaces below the Enclosure or CC is
where you can write the symbols P.S.

Important Considerations:
✓ Likewise, consider the envelope and the folding of the letter before you put it inside the
envelope
✓ The address on the envelope plus its format must be similar to the inside address.
✓ And, the folding of the paper must allow four centimeter top edge of the paper to
protrude or stick out to make the unfolding of the paper faster or easier.
✓ To add distinction to correspondence, use paper, ink, and envelopes of good quality.
 The right paper is 8 ½ by 11 inches in size.
 For a short letter you may use 6 by 9 ½ inches in size.
 An envelope that matches the paper and is strong enough to stand rough
handling and heavy enough to prevent the writing from showing through is the
right one to use for business letters.

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References:
1. Baraceros, Esther L. Business Correspondence. Second Edition. Manila: Rex Bookstore, Inc., 2013
(pp. 36-55).
2. Bascara, Linda R., et al. Writing for the Corporate World. Quezon City: Rex Book Store, Inc., 2001
(pp. 14-24).
3. Microsoft. Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

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