Page 202 - DENG102_COMMUNICATION_SKILLS_II

Unit 14: Writing and Planning Effective Business Letters

so on. Then there are different occasions/contexts for which suitable letters have to be written. notes
The writers of the letters are in different departments of the organization. In a way every letter
is a unique piece of communication. And yet there are certain time-honoured conventions/
ways of writing that are supposed to be followed. Over the years quite some changes in styles of
writing have been introduced by imaginative writers. Even then the basic aims remain the same.
A systematic study of the art of letter writing requires that we classify them according to their
functions, stricture, tone and approach.
In this unit, you learn the guidelines for writing effective business letters and different types of
business letters.
14.1 effective letter Writing

Writing business letters involves the ease with which words are selected and combined so to
clear the message to the readers. There are certain do’s and don’ts of writing commercial letters.
A few principles or essentials of a good business letters are discussed as under:

14.1.1 Write clearly

The basic guideline for writing, the one that must be present for the other principles to have
meaning, is to write clearly—to write message in such a way that the reader can understand,
depend on, and act on. You can achieve clarity by making your message accurate and complete,
by using familiar words, and by avoiding dangling expression and unnecessary jargon.

1. Be accurate: A writer’s credibility is perhaps his or her most important asset, and credibility
depends greatly on the accuracy of the message. If by carelessness; lack of preparation, or a
desire to manipulate, a writer misleads the reader, the damage is immediate as well as long
lasting. A reader who has been fooled once may not trust the writer again.
Accuracy can take many forms. The most basic is the truthful presentation of facts and
figures. But accuracy involves much more.

Example: Consider the following sentence for a memo to a firm’s financial backers.
The executives committee of Mittal Financial Service met on Monday, Sept. 1, to determine
how to resolve the distribution fiasco.
Suppose, on checking, the reader learns that Sept. 1 fell on a Wednesday this year not on a
Monday. Immediately, the reader may suspect everything else in the message. The reader’s
thinking might be, “If the writer made this error that I did catch, how many errors that I
didn’t catch are lurking there?”

Now consider some other subtle shades of truth. The sentence implies that the committee
met, perhaps in an emergency session, for the sole purpose of resolving the distribution
fiasco. But suppose this matter was only one of five agenda items being discussed at a
regularly scheduled meeting. Is the statement still accurate? Suppose the actual agenda listed
the topic as “Discussion of Recent Distribution Problems.” Is fiasco the same as problems?
The accuracy of a message, then, depends on what is said, how it is said, and what is
left unsaid (see, for example, the following section on the importance of completeness).
Competent writers assess the ethical dimensions of their writing and use integrity, fairness,
and good judgment to make sure their communication is ethical.
2. Be complete: Closely related to accuracy is completeness. A message that lacks important
information may create inaccurate impressions. A message is complete when it contain all
the information the reader needs—no more and no less – to react appropriately. As a start,
answer the five Ws: Tell the reader who, what, when, where, and why. Leaving out any of

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