377 King James Street

Edinburgh ED4 1MU

b Scotland

Tel: 00 44 1301 567567

fax: 00 44 1301 567586

e-mail: infogreas@warmmail.com

c 7 February 2002

d Mr Felix Dubois

Banque Regionale du Sud-ouett 14 Route Nationals 24340 Mareuil

France

e Dear Mr Dubois

f Thank you for your recent enquiry.

g I enclose our brochure which gives you information about the services we offer and our prices. If you would like any more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

h We look forward to hearing from you.

i Yours sincerely

^j Fiona McDuff

k Fiona McDuff

l Partner

m Enc. GE Associates brochure

n Great Eastern Associates www.greas.co.uk

Task III. Read the text about how to write a good business letter and do the exercise after it.

Business Letter Writing

Purpose of a Business Letter

A business letter (or formal letter) is a formal way of communicating between two or more parties. There are many different uses and business letters. Business letters can be informational, persuasive, motivational, or promotional. Business letters should be typed and printed out on standard white paper.

Elements of a Good Letter

The most important element of writing a good letter is your ability to identify and write to your audience. If you are addressing your letter to the department of human resources, avoid using highly technical terms that only engineers would understand, even if your letter is addressed to an engineering company, chances are that the personnel in human resources does not have an engineering background. The next element is that you make sure your present your objective in a clear and concise manner. Don't be vague about your objective, most people will not have the patience to sit there and guess at the meaning of your letter or the time to read a long-winded letter, just get to the point without going into unnecessary details. Another important element to remember is to remain professional. Even if you are writing a complaint letter, remain polite and courteous, simply state the problem(s) along with any other relevant information and be sure to avoid threats and slander.

Which of the following tips do you use when writing a letter? Put them in order from greatest to least priority.

Letter Writing Tips

1. Always proofread the letter after writing it, check for sentence structure, grammar, spelling mistakes...

2. Keep the recipient in mind, and write in a way that he/she can easily understand the letter.

3. Don’t use abbreviated dates, e.g. use November 19, 2011, and not 11/19/11

4. Proofread the letter again (and again) after you have revised it.

5. Be respectful when you write, even if writing a letter of complaint.

6. Try to keep your letter short enough so that it fits on one page.

7. If your letter is more than a page long, use another page, don't use the back of the page.

8. Be concise and keep to the point, but don't leave out any important information.

9. If you have access to company (or personal) stationary with a letterhead on it, use that instead of regular paper.

Task IV. The following abbreviations are widely used in letters. Match the abbreviations with their right definitions.

a) asap	1. enclosure (when you include other papers with your letter)
b) cc	2.postscript (when you want to add something after you've finished and signed it)
c) enc	3. as soon as possible
d) pp	4. carbon copy (when you send a copy of a letter to more than one person, you use this abbreviation to let them know)
e) ps	5. per procurationem (a Latin phrase meaning that you are signing the letter on somebody else's behalf; if they are not there to sign it themselves, etc)
f) PSRP	6. please turn over (to make sure that the other person knows the letter continues on the other side of the page)
g) pto	7. please reply