BUSINESS ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Writing Business Letters

General Guidelines

If writing a business letter takes you much longer than in your own language,
here are a few guidelines that you may find helpful.

Plan before you write.
- Look up words you need before you start.
- Note the points you want to make, and order them into logical paragraphs.
Tone
- Write as you would speak in a business conversation.
  The tone should be friendly and polite.
Names
- Make sure you check the gender of the addressee (the recipient),
  as well as the correct spelling of the person's name and title.
- Use Ms. for women and Mr. for men.
  You can use Mrs. for a woman if you are 100% sure that she is married.
Dates
- To avoid any confusion, write the month instead of using numbers
  (e.g. January 15th, 2012 or 15 January 2012).
Be concise and clear. The easier it is to read a letter the better.
- Keep sentences and paragraphs short and simple.
- Use straightforward vocabulary to avoid any misunderstanding.
- Ask direct questions.
- Rewrite any sentence that does not seem perfectly clear.
- If the recipient is not a native English-speaker, it is preferable to avoid
  words or expressions that are too technical or complicated.

Remember this word order principle

Subject	Verb	Object	Manner	Place	Time
Who	Does	What	How	Where	When

Example :
Mr. Brown will travel by plane to London on Monday, June 5th.
A technician will install the equipment in your office on Tuesday.

Avoid old-fashioned words
- Although they are used in legal documents and contracts, words like
  'herewith', 'herein', 'aforementioned', etc. are rarely used in letters.
  
  The following style of sentence is preferable :
  "You will find more information on our products in the enclosed brochure."