 Lecture 17. Assalamu Alaikum. Welcome to the Virgil University's course on business and technical communication. In today's lesson, we look at different types of letters. We will be looking at letters of inquiry, which is basically a letter when somebody is asking for specific information. In some cases, such as a request for promotional material, the recipient will have a clear interest in responding to your letter. In other cases, such as a request for specific information on a product, the recipient may or may not be as motivated to respond quickly. Consequently, always make the tone of the letter friendly and make it easy for the recipient to identify and provide the information you need. In some cases, if you are asking for information, the recipient will want to give you that information immediately. For example, if you are asking for promotional material or if you are asking for information about the company, the recipient will respond immediately. In some cases, the recipient may or may not be as motivated to respond quickly. So, whenever you write a letter of inquiry or a letter of inquiry, the recipient may or may not be as motivated to respond quickly. The letter of inquiry has a specific format. We looked at some formats in the previous lesson as well. In this lesson, we will look at particular formats specifically for letter of inquiries. In the first paragraph, you will identify yourself and, if appropriate, your position and your institution of firm. So, first of all, in a letter of inquiry, you will tell who you are and in what capacity you are writing this letter. If you belong to an institution or a company, then what is your role in that company or institution? In the second paragraph, you will briefly explain why you are writing the letter and how you will use the requested information. You will also offer to keep the response confidential if such an offer seems reasonable. If you feel that you will get information, then the person who is writing the letter wants to keep that information confidential. If you want to keep it secret, then you can offer to send this information to your own letter. If you send this information to me, then I will use it only for this particular purpose and I will keep it confidential if you want. If that information is such that the person who is writing the letter wants to keep it confidential, then you can offer to keep it confidential. It will be more comfortable to share that information with you. In your letter of inquiry, you will list the specific information you need so that the reader finds it easily. You can phrase your requests as questions or as a list of specific items of information. In other case, make each item clear and discrete, which means that each item should be listed independently and there should be no overlapping of items. So whatever it is that you are requesting, you can either ask that request as question form. You can say something like, may I have information about your institute? May I have information about the different products that you manufacture? Or you can put it as a list where you can say, please send me information about the following and then you can list the names of the products. But in either case, you will make sure that there is no overlapping between the different items that you are requesting. Also, you will try to conclude your letter by offering your reader some incentive for responding to you. If your reader knows that they have some benefit by responding to you, then they are more likely to respond to your request more promptly. So if the reader has any idea that they have some benefit, then they will respond more quickly. So you can tell them what their benefit is at the end of your letter. We are going to have a look at a letter of inquiry which is written by a computer programmer requesting specific information about an upcoming release of a software product. Now as you can see in this letter, there is a letter head which we talked about in the previous lesson. Then there is the date and the name of the person to whom the letter has been written which is the customer relations department in a software company. And the letter starts with their customer relations because there is no particular person, one person that the letter has been written to. Or at least the writer does not know the name of the person that he is writing to. So he has addressed it to the whole department. In the main body of the letter, the writer has introduced himself. He said I am a systems engineer at Arlington Heights Programming Associates and what he is doing. In the second paragraph he talks about what his team is working on and how they are going to use their product. In the third paragraph he says that he needs some information about the particular product that the company is producing. And he gives a list of the specific information that he needs. And then finally he ends by two sentences saying that he will be grateful if they could send the product and how he will be contacted and then the close. Note that he is also indicated who the matter of the sent to apart from this main, the primary addressee in the form of C.C. Mr. R. Williams. So obviously a copy of the letter is going to Mr. R. Williams as well although the letter is not addressed to Mr. R. Williams. So he will put a C.C. note as well. Now apart from letters of inquiry, in a business situation we would also be required to write technical information letters and memorandum. Technical information letters and memoranda are short documents that announce new technical information such as a software bug and its solution or a new feature for example. You will use the memorandum format if the information is being sent inside an organization and you will use the letter format if the document is to be sent out to individuals outside your organization. We have already talked about memorandums, short notes, short messages which are used within the organization. So if you are giving any technical information, if you want to share it with your own company then you will use the memorandum format. And if you are giving technical information to people outside your organization then you will use the letter format. We are going to have a look at an example which is adapted from a technical information memorandum written by information systems at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The document informs users of MIT's network of a change in the protocols of MIT's main world web app server that allows users to place shorter uniform resource locators or URLs as you would be more familiar with under www pages. Now as you can see in the main body of the letter or the memorandum there are three paragraphs. The first paragraph talks about what the URL is. The second paragraph talks about what it does and then the third paragraph talks about what MIT's information systems has come up with and it gives the web page as well. So as you saw a memorandum, a technical information memorandum or letter can be pretty long and it can give very detailed information. However as I said earlier according to the purpose and the type of audience that it's addressed to you will determine the format. The main structure within the body will remain the same, the information that goes out will be the same. But if it's to be sent to people inside your company then it will be in a memo form. If it's to be sent to people outside the company then it will be in a letter form where you will have the address of the person that is being sent to and your name, the date, the CC notations etc. And the memo format as we saw in an earlier lesson how the memos are addressed. Apart from these two types of letters in a work environment you will also be required to write references and letters of recommendations. You should follow standard procedures in obtaining references and use conventional formats in writing letters of recommendation. Now you can be in a position of either writing letters of recommendations for people or you might be in a position where you need to ask people to write a letter of recommendation for you. Where you need to obtain a reference for yourself. So you will be writing letters to people asking them to write a letter of reference or you will be giving out a letter of reference yourself. So depending on what position you are in or what situation you are in you will follow the formats. References are an essential component of almost all admissions grant employment processes. Wherever you apply, wherever people apply for admission for a grant to have the applications process they will need some form of reference. And you might need to, as I said earlier, you might need to acquire those references for yourself or you might be writing those references for other people. Managers and other individuals in any selection process need evaluation from individuals who have had long and close contact with applicants in order to assess accurately their abilities and accomplishments. Obviously someone can write a reference that has been contacted with those people and knows them very well. If I ask someone to write a reference then I can only ask them to write a reference that I am confident to know. Because we know them and we can give them some guarantees and we can tell them how they will be doing their job. Those people who don't know me can't give any reference about me. So when you ask for a reference then you only ask for people who know you very well in the work environment. And if you give a reference then you only give a reference for those people who know you very well and can confidently talk about them. Also you must keep in mind that the number of recommendations required by employers and universities usually ranges from one to five. Most commonly it's three. So most people require three recommendations, three references, but it can vary from anywhere from one reference to five references. The two basic forms of references, oral and written. That means a lot of people can give oral references. They can recommend a lot of people with written references. Most often oral references are conducted by telephone. A lot of the times people will just call up, pick up the telephone, call other people and ask for oral references. It's very rare that someone asks for a reference personally face to face. If you have applied for a reference then your prospective employer will take your reference on the telephone. For example, your previous employer will not physically go to him. So therefore the name, professional title and affiliation, the address and phone number of each referee is included in the list of references. Which is often mentioned in resumes and application letters. But it's always kept separate from them as well. It's not always a main part of application letters. There's a separate section which says who the referees are. For example, if there's an application form, there will be a separate section on it. In which the people who give the reference know the name, the telephone number etc. You can write the names of the referees later. So that the people who want to contact you can easily contact them via letter or telephone and take reference about you. So also you need to give your list of references to a potential employer or to a selection committee only when requested. If your selection committee or the employer does not ask for references from you, then you don't need to give a name to anyone for your references. You also need to keep in mind that the recommenders, the people who are giving the reference to you are doing your favour. If you want to write a favourable letter to someone, then they are doing a favour on you and are helping you. So if you subject them to too many intrusions, if you give out their name to too many prospective employers and they are constantly being hounded by people who want them to give reference for you, then you may find that they are not too willing to help you. So if you have a previous employer or teacher who is coming to you the next day to tell you how they are, how they will be doing their job, how they are students, how they work with you in the company, then eventually they will come to you and may be they won't give you that much of a reference. So think a lot and give the names of the people who will give your reference and when you understand it is important. Now coming to the other form of recommendation letters, the written references. These are more formal and often they are written to a specific individual for a specific position. So in this case you will ask your referee or the person who is writing your recommendation letter to write your letter and you will inform them what it is that you are applying for so that that letter can be specific to that position and can be addressed to a specific person or company. In other cases, letters of recommendation are written for a general type of job or for graduate school for example and are included in a collection of letters of recommendation called a dossier. What happens in this case is that you do not know where you will be applying. So you go to your previous employer or your previous teachers and you ask them for a general recommendation letter for education, for the education or you ask them for a general education letter for a general type of a job or job as a computer programmer for example. And in this case the heading will say to whom it may concern and the letter will be more general letter which will not name any specific company where you are applying and it will form a part of your collection of recommendation letters. This type of recommendation letter you can get from a variety of people and include with your application. Now when you are obtaining your letters of recommendation make your candidacy as strong as possible by carefully soliciting references and letters of recommendation. You need to be careful who you are asking to write your letter so that you are seen to be as strong a candidate as possible. Obviously you will get letters of recommendation from those people who think that they will give you strong recommendation letters. If you will ask from such people who may not have a good impression about you then it is better that you do not ask them for recommendation letters because the letter you are writing will be very vague or you may include some negative things about you. So it is better that they do not write anything about you. So you will ask only those people who will give you favorable letters and who know you very well and your impression is also positive. Because obviously after reading the recommendation letter the impression about you will be made by your employers. That is a recommendation that is extremely important in decisions to hire or admit an individual or to avoid a scholarship or a grant so you have to be very very careful who writes that letter for you and that you are sure that when they write that letter it will be a well written positive recommendation. So consequently be sure that you are spending enough time and effort to ensure that your letters of recommendation are effective. Now obviously time when I say I spend enough time and effort I do not mean that you will be writing the letter. You do not have to write the letter, you do not have to write the letter because the letter that you write will be written by the referee who has to give you recommendation. But you will have to spend time in such a way that you will have to go to him or request him to tell him where you are applying why you are doing it and why it is important that you get a good letter from him. So if you will make a time and effort then you will get a good letter. In some cases you list an individual as a reference and the organization or individual who is considering your application will contact that person. Often this will happen only if you have found a list for a position if they are very very sure that they want to have you then they will contact that person may be for an oral reference or in other situations they might ask for form a letter of recommendation from each of the person that you have named as a referee. So in either case you need to make sure that the people who will be giving out the reference actually know what you have applied for and remember you and I am in a position to give a positive reference for you. So if possible also a general guideline is that if possible you should ask one or two more persons than required to give you a reference because in case the person or the two people or three people you have named and you have said will be your referee are not available then you have somebody else who can give a reference as well. Also ask a range of persons who can testify to different abilities and accomplishments relevant to the position or award. Basically this means that if for example you have applied for a job which requires that you have specific skills for example as a computer operator or computer programmer then don't name people who can only satisfy to your computer programming abilities only give names of people who can certify to the different range of abilities that you have or name people who are name two or three different people who can certify to different types of abilities. So if you give someone's name as a referee who knows you in a work situation who tells you that you are a good computer programmer then give someone's name as a referee who knows you as a student who can tell you how hard working you are and how brilliant you are how strong you are academically so that both your things are covered one reference becomes your academic and one reference becomes your job related. Try to give names of people who are named as references so that you can cover the different areas of your personality. Also if possible ask someone in person to write a recommendation or to be a reference go to them, talk to them and ask them directly if the individual is far away not accessible personally ask him or her by phone or through a written letter inform them personally don't send a message through people so make the effort to be as direct with them as possible so that they give you a positive reference letter generally unless you know the person extremely well do not ask someone to be a reference or to write a letter of recommendation through email because it just it shows it seems more careless it seems more casual in fact and if you know the person very well and you are on casual terms with that person then an email will suffice otherwise it may be something that will not be taken very seriously it may be something that the other person will not respond to very quickly so try that when you are asking for a letter of recommendation then go to them and talk to them request them or call them if they are far away try not to email them just email them in that situation if you are very informal with them also never list a person as a reference or as someone who will provide a letter of recommendation until the person is agreed to do so first of all we talked about taking a letter of reference to write a letter for you secondly we talked about that in your resume or letter of application you don't give anyone's name, address or phone number that you contact them they will give you a recommendation never list a person as a reference until the person is given a phone number first of all don't take permission from them you have not clarified that are they really ready to be your reference or not so make sure that whoever you are naming as a potential reference or recommender they know that you will be doing this and they agree also give each person serving as a reference or who is writing a letter of recommendation the following information you need to give them a description of the position or award that you are applying for number two give them a short statement of your professional goals longer than a one sentence career objective statement included as part of your resume you would have in the resume you would have that one sentence objective statement you need to give them a longer statement a longer statement of your professional goals it should be very long, should be short but longer than one sentence so that they know what it is that your objective is also give them a current resume which means that an updated CV number four give them a background material to refresh the recommender's memory of specific work you did including your letter of recommendation now for example if under this person you did some particular work name that give them the material background information about what it is that you have done what it is that they should remember you by so that in case they have forgotten it becomes clear for example if you are going to a principal or teacher of your college to take a letter of reference then you should give them a short objective statement in which they are applying so give them a little in writing what were the achievements in your college and what work did you do with them if for example you were active in your debates in the society's head then you should remind them that I did this work with you so that they can then mention that in the reference letter if they are able to mention about you then it seems more personal and it seems a more effective letter of recommendation rather than giving a vague letter saying yes he or she was a good student only generally people give more weight to recommendations that contain a waiver of your right to see the recommendation i.e. if your recommendation letter is and you say that I don't want to see it I will directly send a prospective employer so I will send it without seeing it so when your employers will consider it to be a more correct reference then the person who will know what you have seen may be your own and you may have told that it should be included so if it is a confidential reference then it is much better it is more effective however sometimes it may be prudent don't waive of the right to see it especially if you are unsure of your recommender's attitude towards you or of his or her writing ability so if you feel that when you are giving a reference they may not give a very positive reference or you feel that their writing ability is not so strong or the language is not well phrased then it is better to see it once if your employer is applying for your submission because if you feel that the reference is ineffective or unimpressive then you can choose not to give a reference to that person if it is a confidential reference then you don't know what your prospective employer is also remember that recommenders are busy people so ask a person to write the recommendation and give him all the necessary material at least 3 weeks before the recommendation is due because don't put people in a situation where you go to them or write them a letter saying I want a reference from you in 2 weeks because they might not write it because they won't have the time or if they write it it will be a very hurried reference maybe nowadays if you are writing a reference then you can change your name but it won't be personalized so at least 2-3 weeks is better for them so that they can write a proper reference and remember that you give as much time as you want so sometimes recommendations are sent to a central office such as a university career center and who then forwards the recommendations to specific individuals in these cases you may be able to ask someone in the office to review the recommendations on file and suggest which combination of recommendations you should use which present the best overall picture of your abilities and accomplishments for your job or your career objectives now this basically means that if you have collected a number of references many people have written references and if you are sending your application through or if someone has a central career placement or an office through which you are sending your application then it would be better to show 2-3 better references to choose which are better for that position you can reflect also if appropriate provide each recommender with all required recommendation forms there are many cases that you don't have open letter of reference but you have your own forms so make sure that all the references you are writing to them that you have completed all the parts of the form that you are required to fill out when there are reference forms there are some sections that you have to fill out and some sections that your referee has to fill out so when you give your referee the form then you have to fill out your own section also give them a sheet stating to home or where the recommendation should be sent if appropriate include an addressed and in some cases also the postage so that the referee does not have to pay for the postage and does not have to have the hassle of addressing the envelope to where the recommendation has to go one week before the recommendations are due tactfully ask each recommender if he or she has sent the recommendation as I said earlier give them 3 weeks to write the reference and one week before just remind them that they need to send it but don't remind them don't call them up and say have you sent it or not remind them and just ask very tactfully that the reference was due on a particular date and you hope that it has been sent and if not it is anything you can do to assist after the letter of recommendation has been sent or the references have been given write a short letter thanking the recommender this is important because it is somebody who has done your favor and you might even need to ask them to do this favor or similar favor again so it is important that you thank them and that you are courteous now the recommender has spent time helping you and such a recognition of his or her efforts not only is polite but also makes it easier for you to request further recommendations so that thank you letter is important and remember that you should keep all your references and letters of recommendations current in general written recommendations that are older than 3 or 4 years whole little wait so try to that your references are very recent, new because 3 or 4 old references have no importance when you have to write a letter of recommendation for yourself you need to make sure that you are providing relevant information and that you are presenting an individual truthfully and positively first we talked about when you have to write a letter of recommendation now we will talk about when you have to write a letter of recommendation for someone in this case you have to try whatever you say is true and for which you are writing reference if you think it is true if you can really say something positive then you can say positive negative things and try not to include and if you feel you don't have anything positive to say then you refuse to write that letter you say sorry write it from someone else in most cases agree to write a letter of recommendation only if you can honestly write a supportive letter there is no point in writing a negative letter of recommendation because that would be doing the person harm rather than any good then in that case it is better to decline the request ask as a recommender ask for a current resume and as complete description as possible of the position that the person is applying for assemble and review all the relevant information about the person you are recommending and try not to overlook important accomplishments because it is very easy to overlook important accomplishments if you are not very familiar with them so get all the necessary information from that person and try to make sure that you include all their important accomplishments in the letter as I said earlier represent the person truthfully but positively try not to paint a very unrealistic positive picture of the applicant because if it is a letter which is giving too much positive points which seem untruthful then it may not be counted it may be disregarded also if you are writing an untruthful letter of recommendation then you lose your credibility as a reference as a recommender for future candidates so make sure that you are focusing in positive but you are not focusing unrealistically on the positive you are not writing about things which are not true and avoid writing negative letters of recommendations is better not to write them as a as a referee you should try to tailor the recommendation that the person is applying for a letter for example recommending a person for a position as a camp counsellor should contain different information from that in a letter recommending a person or an individual for a job as a computer programmer one person can be who is applying for different jobs but the information that the person is recommending will be different for example if a camp counsellor is applying for a summer camp counselling job then when you are writing information for that job then you will write different recommendations whereas if the person is applying for a computer programmer then you will write different recommendations for him because then you will enhance his computer programming skills counselling job skills counselling skills his people skills will be highlighted when you actually get down to writing the letter by describing how you know the individual that you are recommending and the specific context upon which you are basing your evaluation in what situations have you known the individual for how long have you known him and how closely have you had contact with this person so the beginning should always be giving the background of your relationship with that person present the individual's general qualities relevant to the position along with one or two detailed examples including vivid detail will make the recommendation much more effective so instead of writing in just general terms give some vivid examples give some vivid detail highlight points that are that you have noticed in that person and that you feel will make the recommendation much more personal in the sense of it will let the reader know that you actually know this person well and that this recommendation has been written specifically for this particular person and it's not a recommendation that you use for all your ex-employees who come to you in most cases a letter of recommendation should consist of three or four paragraphs and should not be over one page in length because if it's a very long recommendation letter probably nobody will read it so it should be three or four consistent paragraphs which should be similar in length with the first paragraph talking about how you know that person and then subsequent one or two subsequent paragraphs talking about what you know about that person and then the final paragraph wishing that person in more detail about maybe his personal qualities and wishing that person well in the future so in this second lecture on letters we looked at letters of inquiry we talked about the different types of letters of inquiry and how different people can have subject reactions based on what type of inquiry it is we also looked at the format of inquiry letters where I told you that you need to identify yourself in the first paragraph and explain why you are writing in the second paragraph and how the information will be used and in the list the specific information you need and then conclude by offering your readers some incentive we also looked at a sample request letter inquiry letter secondly we looked at technical information letters and memoranda we talked about the fact that there are short documents and that if you are writing about technical information within a company you will use a memorandum format and if you are writing to people external to your company then you will use a letter format we also looked at an example of a technical information memorandum from written by the information systems at MIT the third type of letter that we looked at in this lesson was the letter of reference and letter of recommendation now in this we looked at it from two different aspects we looked at requests for letters of reference and what you should include what you should give the person who is going to be writing the letter of recommendation for you how you should request it whether you should be requesting the reference by telephone or email or letter or face to face depending on the context it was agreed that it is best to either to visit the person yourself or telephone or write a letter and it is least desirable to request for reference through email only do so when absolutely necessary we also talked about what needs to be included what information needs to be given to the person who is to be writing your reference and that included current resume brief information detail about what you have done what work you have done with that person name of the position that you are applying for the company that you are applying for and a short statement of objectives longer than what is included in your resume today we also talked about the etiquettes of how to request a reference and how not to infringe on your recommender's time how not to push them to give your reference too early or too soon and that you need to give them at least three weeks to write the reference for you so that they are able to actually write your good reference now on the other side of the coin was when you have to write a reference letter or a recommendation in this we looked at the different parameters that you will be looking at what is it that you need to know in order to write an effective reference for a previous student or an ex-employee also you need to remember if you cannot write something positive anything positive about a particular person then it is better to decline the request to write the reference there is no point in writing a negative reference for somebody it is better to say I am sorry I cannot write your reference instead of writing a bad reference for them ask that person to give you the list of accomplishments that they have achieved under you or with you so that you are able to refer to them also refer to key points about that person particular details particular examples so that the reference looks more personalized and it is actually more individual and the person who is reading the reference also realizes that you actually know the applicant well and that is why you are talking about them however you need to make sure that you are not writing untruthfully about a person if you are writing positively especially even if you are writing negatively which you shouldn't but if you are writing positively please stick to the truth please stick to the realistic truth and don't sugarcoat what you are writing for them because that will by doing that you will lose your credibility as a recommender and your reference will also seem untruthful so with this we come to the end of our sessions on writing letters until next time Allah Hafiz