Corespondență comercială

Addressing envelopes

The envelope of a business letter should create a good impression on the receiver, an impression of carefulness and good taste. Because good impression is extremely important in business, envelopes should be of high-quality paper. Their sizes varies according to the length of the letter as well as to the number of enclosures that are to be sent. The most useful color is white, because the contrast white-black allows a more comfortable reading.

The envelopes should be very tough if lots of papers are to be sent and very thin for the correspondence sent by air, not to weight too much. Envelope addressing should have some characteristics such as accuracy, clearness and good appearance. The inside address is copied correctly from the letter, including any "attention" or "confidential" indication. The address is typed in the lower part of the envelope towards the right (half way down and one-third in, from the left of the envelope).

halfway down

one 3"

The Secretary

Percy Astins & Co. Ltd

18-22 King's Avenue

Richmond

Surrey

Ample space is given to stamps and postmarks, the post town is followed by the country name; the latter is omitted only if the name of the town is well known (e.g. Paris, London, Madrid, New York, etc.).

Parts of a Letter

Any letter has some parts that are to be present no matter how long or short the letter is. They are the following:

• Heading - letter heading / letter head

• Date

• Reference line

• inside address (addressee's address)

• Salutation

• Subject line

• Body of the letter

• Complimentary close

• Signature

• Enclosures

Now let's take separately each part and present it with all its characteristics.

Headline

It should include the name of the company; field of activity; address; POB; codes. All of them are arranged in a form established by the boss of the company. The British societies have in their names the words "Limited" or "Co. Ltd.". It means that the responsibilities of the society are limited. The American companies have the word "Incorporated" or for short "Inc.".

Date

The next element that appears on the letter is the date; there are so many different ways of writing it such as: the 3rd of May, 3 May... The American variant looks like: May 3rd, 20.. while the British one is 3rd May 20.. .

But for avoiding any interpretation, the date is to be written keeping the following order: Day/Month/Year and this is typed in full. Example: "23 April 2008 ".

References

The references are groups of capital letters indicating the first letters of the names of the persons who are in charge with the writing and typing of the letters. Example: Reference. AM/BB (i.e. Adams Mary/Brown Betty -the first person has written the letter while the second has typed it). The reference may contain some numbers which are the codes of a department that is in charge with the solving of a problem, such as -523/LO. When a letter exchange begins, the first letter that is sent contains: I

Our reference. AM/BB

If you get an answer to this letter, then on this one, there is a pair of I

references such as:

Our reference. JE/SH Your reference. AM/BB

It means that the receiver has its own reference (Our reference. JE/SH) and the addressee's one is mentioned as your reference. AM/BB. The two couples of references indicate the two equivalents from the companies who are in charge with the solving of the problem. They are generally placed on the left side of the paper or in the middle but always on the same level.