ENGLISH LETTER DESCRIPTIVE FOR SBI PO 2015-16 |Exam Tips

DESCRIPTIVE ENGLISH

LETTER WRITING

The key to the success of the era of globalization is communication and correspondence (letters) is perhaps the most important component of communication. Even in the age of modern technological innovations like e-mail, internet and long distance connectivity, letters still carry the maximum load of personal and business communication.

Of course writing a letter is not as big a job as planning a marketing campaign or building a family room. But it is important. As the saying goes, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”. Besides, the “planning” you do for a small writing job like a letter, need not and should not be elaborate or time-consuming. A few minutes spent thinking and following the steps can help you write a better letter, and may actually save time rather than take more time.

Whatever be the medium of carrying the message, the message has to be properly written to convey the required meaning and complete sense. One has liberty to write personal letters as one wants, but business or formal letters have to follow some norms in order to make appropriate impact.

What is the importance of letter writing ?

Letter writing is an important and effective tool. Letter writing helps you put something concrete in hand that helps you iron out a position or reinforce something you may have talked about.

TYPES OF LETTERS

There are several types of letters – like application and appreciation, enquiries and requests, Complaint and Recommendation, Sales and Promotion, Welcome or Invitation letters. Mainly we have to study two types of letters.

• Formal Letters
• Informal Letters

Formal Letters - They can be related to business, institution or educational purpose. The

format has to be followed while writing a formal letter.

Informal Letters - These types of letter are written to relatives or friends. These can also include invitations etc. Such kind of letters are also known as Personal or Social Letters.

TIPS FOR WRITING A LETTER

You must write good letters. And good letters come from careful writing as all literate people

reading your letter are surprisingly talented at quickly spotting errors or gaffes in the writing of other people. Here are some common tips –

• Keep paragraphs short, preferably fewer than five lines. Vary the length of your sentences. And
• don’t be afraid to begin sentences with conjunctions (and, but, or). To emphasize a point, you
• can use a one – sentence paragraph.
• Think twice before using any adjectives or adverbs. Impress people with your nouns and verbs,
• not with decorations.
• Use a friendly, conversational tone. Also, keep it deferential.
• Show confidence but not arrogance.
• Avoid unclear phrases like “enclosed please find my resume for your perusal”. Be more creative than that.
• Avoid vague statements. Give specific statements : people will find it both refreshing and easy to understand.

LETTER WRITING RULES

There are mainly five points that have to be taken care of while writing a letter. These are-

(a) The Heading

(b) The Salutation or courteous greetings

(c) The Body of the letter – communication or the message

(d) The Subscription – courteous leave taking, or conclusion

(e) The Signature Name of the writer

(a) HEADING

Heading of a letter basically consists of Two Parts :-

(i) address of the writer followed by

(ii) the date on which the letter was written by him.

Heading can be written on the Right or Left (keep on changing with time-presently we follow the convention of writing heading in the left corner) corner of the first page of the letter.

Example of a Heading is-

63, Mayur Vihar Colony

Phase -1

Delhi-160032

May 15, 2015

(b) SALUTATION

The Salutation in the letter will depend upon the depth of relationship of the Writer with the person to whom the letter is being written, thus it varies from letter to letter. Salutation is written at the left hand of the page, at a lower level the Heading. The first and last word of the salutation always starts in Capital Letters (of alphabet).

Examples of the salutation are:

In Formal letters

To officials/Principal/Headmaster/Teachers

Sir,

Madam,

In Business Letters

To Businessmen:-

Dear Sir,

Dear Sirs,

In Informal Letters

To Blood Relations,

My dear Father,

My dear Mother,

My dear Kavita,

To, Friends,

Dear Rajesh,

My dear Ajay,

Note: Dear friend or my dear friend is never used as Salutations.

(c) BODY

The body itself is considered as the life of the letter and the style in which it is written will depend upon the kind of letter one wishes to write. Like, the style of the letter to be written will be entirely different from the style of the letter to be written to an official and so on. But few points that one has to keep in mind irrespective of the style while writing the body of the letter are-

• Divide the letter into various paragraphs to mark changes of subject-matter etc.
• Use simple and direct language in short sentences. It will make the message clear and to the point.
• Always try to be complete. For this, think out what you want to say before beginning to write a letter; and put down all the point in logical manner.
• Write neatly to avoid inconvenience to the reader because of your bad penmanship.
• Take care of the punctuation and be consistent with it. Incorrect punctuation may alter the whole meaning of the sentence.

(d) SUBSCRIPTION

The subscription of the letter i.e. the end should be according to the sharing of the letter. A letter must not end abruptly as this would look rude. So certain forms of polite leave taking are prescribed that should be written after the last words of the letter on the left hand side corner of the lines after the body. It should start with a capital letter and end with a comma. Some examples of the subscription of the letter of various kinds are:-

• To Blood Relations : Yours affectionately,
• To Friends: Yours sincerely,
• To Principal/Headquarter/Teacher etc: Yours obediently
• To Officials/Businessmen: Yours faithfully,
• To Strangers : Yours truly

Note : Never use apostrophe (‘) with ‘yours’ in the subscription (your’s is incorrect).

(e) SIGNATURE

The signature of the writer of the letter should be below the subscription. In a letter to the stranger, the signature should be clearly written so that he could know whom to address in reply.

Note : A woman should prefix to her name Miss or Mrs. or Ms in brackets before her name like (miss) Purvi Agarwal.

ADDRESS

The address is written on the envelop of the post card very clearly with pin code.

 

Source:-Bankersguru