 Lecture 16, Assalamu Alaikum. Welcome to the virtual university's course on business and technical communication. In the previous lecture, we looked at different forms of internal communications within an organization. In today's lecture and the next, we will look at different forms of letters which are used to communicate outside of an organization. Whereas, the memorandum is that we looked at in the previous lecture is the primary vehicle for communication within the organization to communicate with the people who are working within your organization. Letters are often used to communicate to individuals outside the organization especially in formal and semi-formal contexts. Letters are an essential part of all business and technical communication because they are more formal and more reliable than electronic mail or email and they are more precise and permanent than telephone or face-to-face oral conversations. So, where we use email a lot, where we use oral conversation a lot to communicate with people outside the organization, oral communication either face-to-face or on the telephone, letters are usually more reliable, they are more formal in business situations. So, it is necessary that if we want to communicate with people outside the organization, not in our company, but in some other company or individuals, then when we communicate with them through a letter, then communication is more effective. There are different forms of commonly used letters that we will be looking at in this lecture and the next and we will basically be looking at letters used in technical contexts, not informal letters or personal letters that we use in our digital private lives. The different forms of technical and business communication letters which include job application letters, acceptance letters which would be letters that you are writing to accept a job, transmittal letters, letters that go when you are transmitting some documents, letters that go as cover letters for those documents, enquiry letters, information letters and letters of recommendation. In today's lecture, we will look at the first three type of letters which are job application letters, acceptance letters and transmittal letters. A letter has a specific format and if your organization has a specific style of format that they dictate or that is set for them, then you will follow that format. However, if your organization does not dictate a specific format, then you will follow the guidelines that I will be providing you in this course. Business letters are normally either fully blocked, formatted which means that every line is starting at the left hand margin of the page and usually they have a business letter head at the top of the page. On the other hand, the other type of letter formatting would be the modified block format where the heading and the closing are aligned more towards the center of the page rather than towards the left of the page. It is more commonly used nowadays to use the fully blocked format rather than the modified or semi block format. Business letters typically have the following elements of heading, date, recipient's address which means the address of the person who will be receiving the letter, the salutation, the main body where you will have the main text, the closing and any end notations that you will have. So, yeh sare jo elements hain yeh ek letter ke andar hote hain. Now, let us have a look at an example which includes some of these elements. If you see in this formal letter which is used to correspond from between one company and another, there is they have the header which is more like a memo which says what who it is from, who it is to and the date and what the subject is. And then it starts with an introductory paragraph which gives a summary of the key points because it is a long letter highlighting a procedure and some tests. Therefore, there is a heading that has been given and then under that heading the paragraph has a topic sentence and then details of the of that paragraph. Then there is another heading and then the that is followed by another paragraph with a key topic sentence and details of that topic sentence and so on and so forth. The after that once we have got topic sentences like this under headings, there is a conclusion which again is given as a heading and a sentence or two which are the concluding sentences. The last sentence in the letter is the closing sentence which says please call me if you want additional information on these tests. It is a closing, it is a goodwill sentence which indicates that the writer would welcome further communication and will be happy to respond. And after this would come the closing which would probably be yours sincerely or yours truly. Now if you are using letter head stationary then you will only include the date two lines below the where the letter head ends and in the date you will spell out the name of the month. So, if you have got a letter head, if your company has letter heads, pages which have the company's name printed on them then you do not need to write your own address on the letter. You will just write the name because your address comes in the letter head. And when you write the date, you will not write the spelling of the month in the numerical form. If you are not using letter head stationary, if you are writing your letter on a plain paper then you will begin with your full address which will include the street number, the zip code, the city, etcetera along with obviously your company's address, whatever building it is in, whatever block number, etcetera. And this will be placed one to one and a half inches from the top of the page. So, you will leave one or one and a half inches at the top of the page and then on the left write your own address. Within your address you will spell out any abbreviations such as the name of the street or avenue etcetera or if they are any, if it says if you would normally be writing S T for street in the letter you will be writing the whole spelling of the street of that word. Include the date aligned at left with the address. So, if your address is at the left, your date should also be at the left hand margin of the page. And again you will spell out the name of the month. After writing your own address, you will write the recipient's address. If you are using the letter head then instead of your address, you will use the letter head stationary and then you will write the recipient's address. And this will be two or four lines below the date. So, wherever you have written your date, if you have written your address on a plain paper or on a letter head then you have written your date. After that, you will leave two or four lines and write the address of the reader. And you will include the recipient's title such as Mr, Ms or Doctor and the full name. You will not only write the first name, you will not only write the last name, you will write the full name. If it is a woman who does not have a professional title, if it is a female who is maybe not a doctor, does not have a title like doctor, then you will write Ms or Ms or Mrs. If you know that she prefers Ms or Mrs then you will write Ms or Mrs otherwise if you do not know whether the lady is married or unmarried and what she writes as her title then you will write Ms Ms. If the recipient does not have a title and you are not sure of his or her gender, you have the name but there is no title, there is no doctor for example and you are not sure whether you should be writing Ms, Mrs or Mr because you are not sure of the gender then you will omit the title, you will just write the name. If the recipient has a job title, a designation then you will write that. For example, if the recipient is the manager or director of a company or whatever title they have then you will write that. If you know it, if you do not then you will omit that. If the recipient belongs to a company or organization then you will write the name of that organization and then you will write the full address following the same format as the address in the heading or the same format as your own address. Please note again that the recipient's address is always aligned on the left margin. So, the recipient's address will always come on the left. The sender's address in some cases if it is a semi block letter or a modified block letter can come on the right hand corner of the letter but the recipient's address will always be on the left. In a fully block letter the sender's address will be on the left and the recipient's address will be on the left as well. Now, after you've written the receiver's address, you will write a salutation after the recipient's address. It starts with the word dare and continues with the title of the recipient and then the last name and then there is a colon following the title, the last name. So, if you know the last name then you will only write the title Doctor, Mr, Miss, Mrs, Miss, whatever the title is as appropriate. You will use that title and then you will write their surname. You will never write the first name with the title and then you will put the colon. If you are not sure of the recipient's gender you don't know whether she is a man or a woman and the recipient does not have a professional title then as I said earlier for the address. Similarly, in the salutation you will omit the title, you will not use the title and instead you will use their full name, first name and last name. For example, you will write dear Tabasum Khursheed. If you're not sure if the Basum Khursheed is a man or a woman then you will not write dear Mr. Khursheed because it could be a woman, a lady. So, you will write dear Tabasum Khursheed. Please note that you should avoid using salutations such as dear sir or madam or respected sir, etc. These salutations are not to be used. Instead, you will use the name or the department name. Now, coming to the main body of the letter. We have talked about the address, the date, the salutation. Now, the main body, the text that we have to write, that body should start two lines after the salutation. With the salutation, dear Mr. X, you will leave two lines and then start the main body. The body paragraphs should be single spaced and there should be a double space between paragraphs. So, in one paragraph, the lines of the paragraph, there will be one space but there will be double space between two different paragraphs. Indenting the first line of the paragraph is acceptable but this is more informal than the unindented style. So, if you are writing the first line of the paragraph a little bit inside, it is okay but it feels informal. Therefore, it is better in formal letters that you do not put the first line and do not put a little space inside and all the lines start in the same line. This is a more acceptable way in fully blocked letters. In the body, this was the organization of your body and the format of the body. Now, as far as the content of the letter is concerned, you need to be concise, direct and considerate. These are three things that you have to take care of to the point, do not talk too long, do not talk too much here and there, be direct, reach to what you mean because in a business situation, those who are reading your letter do not have time, they do not want to listen to you. So, what you have to talk about, what you mean is that you should reach there quickly. And considerate that the needs that you are reading, we have already talked about the audience needs. So, do not keep that in mind, you are considerate for the needs of your audience. You should state the letter's purpose in the opening paragraph, include supporting information in the middle paragraph or two paragraphs, and conclude your letter with a very brief paragraph that establishes goodwill and expresses what needs to be done. So, in the first paragraph, you will tell your purpose, why you are writing this letter, you will write all the supporting information in the middle paragraph. And in the last paragraph, you will do something pleasant like, your goodwill is established with the reader and you will recap what you want to do with action. So that the last line, the last impact on the reader is what they want to do and what action they want to do. If a letter requires more than one page, make sure that there are at least two lines of the body text on the final page. Never use one page just for the closing. So, if you feel that your letter is long and you need to go on to the next page, make sure that you have at least some material from the body text to go on to the next page. On the next page, there should be no closing, there should be at least one or two lines of the body text. The second page and all subsequent pages, if they are more than two pages, must include a heading which will have the recipient's name, the date and the page number. Now, coming to the closing phrase of a letter, you will write a complimentary closing phrase, two lines below the final body of the paragraph. Yours truly, sincerely or sincerely yours are the common endings for professional letters. You will not use more informal closings, you will only use things like yours truly, sincerely yours etc. Please note that you will not write things like yours obediently. In professional letters, you will not be writing yours obediently. You can write if you are on slightly informal terms with the person that you are communicating, you may at times write best regards, but it is more common to use sincerely or yours sincerely. You will also in your closing, capitalize the first word, the first letter of the first word of your closing phrase. For example, if you are writing sincerely yours, then sincerely's S is the capital and yours Y is not the capital. And you will end the complimentary close with a comma. Four lines below your complimentary close, you will write your full name. If you are writing it in an official capacity, that is not included in your letterhead, that you are writing on, then you will write your title below your name. For example, you are manager or deputy director or whatever. And your signature will go above your typed name. Now at the bottom of the last page of a business letter, you may use end notations. These will show who typed the letter and whether any materials are enclosed with the letter. And also who is receiving a copy of the letter. In the end notations, when we talk about the typist's initials, you will have the initials of the typist. Just the first letters of that type, the initials of your typist will be the first type of type. And the initials of the typist, the first type of type will be the first type of type. You will have the initials of the typist, just the first letters of the typist's name in lower case, not in capital letters. And these will follow the initials of the author. For example, if you are dictating the letters but the type is your secretary, then your initials will be in capital letters and then the initials will be in colon or slash. Also, if there are enclosures then you will have an enclosure notation. Which will be you can write enclosure or ENCL or ENC to alert the recipient that there is additional material in the letter or in your correspondence. This is to make sure that whatever you attach with your letter does not get lost. You can either identify the enclosure by giving the name or you can indicate how many pieces there are. This can be done by, for example, you can say enclosure colon article by Ali Bashir for example or you can write ENCL dot and in brackets write the number or ENC dot in brackets write the number of things that you are attaching. Also, in addition to the enclosure notation, always refer to your enclosures explicitly within the text of the letter. If at the end of the letter you are writing the enclosure reference of what enclosures you have given. But in the text where you have your main body, you also have to give some reference to what is your enclosure and its relevance with your letter. The third thing that we can use in the end notations is the copy notation which we write CC. This lets the recipient know of who else is receiving a copy. You will put each recipient in your CC list on a separate line. Like we will see in this example that CC is written as a colon and after that all the extra people who are writing this letter are in different lines. Those who are initially writing this letter, who are the direct recipient and the primary recipient of the letter, their names will not be there but those who are getting copies will be their names. Now coming to job application letters. Letters that you will write when you are applying for a job. That is the first type of letter that we will be looking at. You will write job application letters that identify a specific area of employment that summarise your qualifications for the job, refer to an enclosed resume and request the next step of the application process. Usually this next step is an interview. So in your job application letters all these elements should be mentioned. The area that you are interested in, you should specify that. You will write the summary of your qualifications. You will refer to the resume that you have attached and the next step is the interview of the job process. Generally you will say that you wish to be called for an interview. Application letters are usually just one page and they consist of three sections. The front matter, the body and the end matter. Obviously in this the recipient's address and date will be the same as in every letter but after that the front matter, body and end matter will be in a job application letter. The front matter would include a statement of that you are applying for a specific job, title or field. You will also mention the person who referred you to this job or told you about the job. If you learn of the job from an advertisement you will mention that. So in the front matter whatever you are applying for, you will be given an address of that job and you will be given an address of that job. If a person has told you, you will be given a reference of that job. If you have read a newspaper or you have seen a poster, you will be given an address of that job. You will in the body of the job application letter, you will state specifically why you are qualified for the job. You will describe your education and work experience and any other activities that display relevant talents. Maybe such as foreign language proficiencies, leadership, supervised experience, whatever is relevant is your experience. If you have donated blood during college then you don't need to write that for example. But whatever your relevant experiences, relevant contributions are, you will highlight for this job. In your end matter, you will refer to your enclosed resume in which your entire educational history, work related and your interests and hobbies are attached. And you will express your desire for an interview stating when and where you will be available for one. So you will say that you would look forward to an interview and you would also say when it would be convenient. For example, you would like to be called for an interview or that you are looking forward to an interview. Preferably after the 5th of September or whatever you are available for. And if there is a city where you are in Karachi and you live in Lahore then you can specify that you would prefer if the interview could be held in Lahore. If you can travel to Karachi then obviously you will go there. In addition, you will invite further inquiries and state how you can be contacted. You will definitely write that if your prospective employer needs more information from you then you should contact him. So you will write a sentence like if you require any further information, please feel free to contact me. And if you have specific, you will give the number where you can be contacted. If you have different numbers to be contacted between day and night then you will state those and the timings. Let us have a look. In this example, in the front matter the writer has said that he or she will be graduating from MIT in June and what degree they will be getting and what they are interested in. In that particular company what type of opportunity they are interested in and why they are writing the letter. In the next section, they have given a brief summary of what they have done. What type of work they have done, what their experience has been etc. What all they were involved in basically to highlight how they are suitable for this job. So they have told their experience in a very brief way in this paragraph that their previous experience is how they are suitable for this job. In the last section, in the end matter of their body they have given a pleasant closing in which they have written I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and discuss my qualifications for working with Atria. I believe my training has given me the skills to make a valuable contribution. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Now they have written I look forward to hearing from you soon. But they have not specified when they are available for an interview or not. Which leads the reader to believe that whenever they contact them in the next few days they will be available. And then the closing sincerely, etc. Now once you have applied for a job, you will hopefully get an offer. Once you have gone through the interview process and on. And the next written communication that you need to do with that company is an acceptance letter. So an acceptance letter is obvious. If you want to take a job, then you will write a letter to accept that job. Letters accepting a job not only convey the information that you are accepting a job, that particular job. But they also establish a contractual relationship between you and the organization or the person who is offering you the job. So that is one kind of a written contract between you and your new organization. Formal contract will happen later. But they gave you an offer letter writing, in writing and you answered it in writing. So you are bound to take that job and that is bound to give you this job. The rest of the details will be in your contract. Because this is a contractual obligation, it is better that you state your key terms of employment yourself in your acceptance letter so that there is no chance of confusion. So you should restate even if the employer has written the key terms in the letter. You should restate them in your acceptance letter as well just to make sure that they are acceptable. You need to send the acceptance letter as soon as you are absolutely sure that you want to accept the job offer. If you are not sure of accepting that particular offer then please do not send an acceptance letter. Then you need to maybe negotiate or let them know that you will not be accepting. But if you are sure then send it the acceptance letter as soon as possible. If you need more than two weeks to decide whether or not you want to accept the job. If you need more than two weeks to decide whether or not you want to accept the job. Then you should call the company or write a letter to the person who has offered you the job. And ask them for an extension in time that I have not decided yet. Please give me some time and then I will decide and tell you. So it is only polite to let them know that you need more time because otherwise they will give that job to somebody else if they do not hear from you. Now the format of a job acceptance letter will be such that you will begin the first paragraph by enthusiastically accepting the job. If you want, obviously if you are accepting then you need to show your pleasure at being offered that job. So you will show them in a pleasant way that you are happy that you have been offered this job. And you are accepting it. Be sure that you will state the exact title of the job and the salary that has been given to you when you are accepting. The second paragraph that will usually discuss details about the position especially the date that you will begin work. So first of all you will tell that you are happy that you have been offered this job. You will write the title of the job and what salary you have been offered. You will also show that you are accepting the job on that salary. In the second paragraph you will state the details. Especially the main points of the job description and when you will start working. The last paragraph is usually a short statement of goodwill. And it usually indicates that you are looking forward to starting your new job. So a goodwill indicates that you are happy that you want to start your job soon. It starts with a salutation and then in the body the writer says I am pleased to accept your offer of a position as an analyst programmer. This is the job title in the local electronic operating systems division at a salary of so many hundred dollars or rupees per year. So in the first paragraph you have told the job title and also the salary you have mentioned and accepted. In the second paragraph this is written. I have already given my current employer notice of my intention to leave and will be ready to report for work on the date you mentioned in your letter June 1st. So then here they are saying that they have given their notice and they will start work with the new organization on the 1st of June. So the main key term that of employment is when they will start so they have restated that. And in the last the end matter the goodwill closing they just say I look forward to a long and rewarding career with low key which is the name of the company. So that is a very pleasant way of closing that job acceptance letter. The third type of letter that we will look at today is the transmittal letter. It is also called a cover letter and it accompanies a larger item, usually a document. When you send a document or a report or a proposal to another company or another individual, then you will always send a cover letter. The way you applied the job application letter with the resume, that was also a kind of cover letter but it is not a transmittal letter, it is a resume cover letter. Similarly when you send a document to another company, then you will also apply a cover letter with it so that the document will not be misplaced. If you send it to someone or a postman, then the person who opens it will not be confused about why this document has come and for whom it has come. When there is a letter with it, then its purpose will be clarified. And apart from that, from your transmittal letter the person who reads it will get a summary of what this document is and what we will get in it. It provides the recipient with a specific context in which to place the larger document. So, they get a context and then they know why this document has been received by them or why this document has been sent to them. And simultaneously it gives them a permanent record of having sent the material. You get a record, they get a record, they know that they received the document on a particular date and you know that you sent out a letter along with that document on a particular date. Transmittal letters are usually brief. You will not be giving too much information in the transmittal letter because all the information is probably present in the document that it is accompanying. So, you will give a lot of detail in the transmittal letter. In the first paragraph you will tell what you are sending along with that letter and why you are sending it. What is being sent and what is the purpose for sending it? And that is generally the key information that needs to go out in a transmittal letter. A longer transmittal letter, slightly longer one, if the document that is being sent is large may summarize key elements of the proposal in one or two sentences. Whatever has been sent, the document or the proposal, that will be summarized in one or two sentences and maybe any other useful information that needs to be given to the recipient maybe when it was published or when it was approved. You will end your transmittal letter with a one sentence paragraph that establishes goodwill by thanking or complimenting the recipient. Like other letters, you will have like the job acceptance letter. In this letter as well, you will have a one sentence closing paragraph which will establish some kind of goodwill. We are going to have a look at an example which is a formal transmittal letter accompanying a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation has sent a grant proposal. Along with that, the transmittal letter is attached. We will see that. The structure of the letter, the use of language such as words such as hair width and the use of the passive voice reflect common conventions for submitting formal scientific proposals. Because this is a scientific proposal which is being submitted that is why its cover letter, the transmittal letter, its language will follow the scientific proposal's key conventions. That is why in this letter, you will see that the words such as hair width, passive voice, etc. have been used. It starts with the salutation as we said, dare, the title and the surname. And the writer says, I submit hair width a proposal in support of a research program and titled Problems of Excessing Aegon in Cilexate to be performed under my direction in etc., etc., library. I am requesting funding in the amount of so many thousand dollars in total estimated costs for the period from this date to this date. So they are basically in the sample letter saying what is being submitted, where it has been written or where that research has taken place and what needs to be done, what action needs to be taken. Basically, it shows why that document has been sent. Because it is obvious that the reader also wants that if you have sent us this document, then what we have to do with it? Why are you sending us? So they have clearly told us that they are going to fund something. And then they go on to say on page 2, questions relating to any technical aspects of the proposal should be directed to me. Questions of administrative nature should be directed to so and so person at this extension. So they have told us the details of the contact and the queries they will deal with themselves. And then the goodwill closing, your consideration of my proposal is greatly appreciated. They have already complimented that if you consider this, then we are appreciating it a lot. Although they don't know if they are considering it favorably or not, but as a goodwill gesture, they have assumed that it will be considered favorably. Now in this lecture, we looked at job application letters. We looked at how they will be structured, what are the different elements that go into them. We looked at the main body of the letters, of the job application letters and how to refer to resumes that have been attached to job application letters. The next thing that we looked at was acceptance letters, accepting a job. And we talked about how they will be structured, what you need to include, what are the key points that go into your acceptance letter. We also looked at transmittal letters, in which we saw that transmittal letters go along with what kind of things, which things are used as a cover letter. What are the main points that should be included, which we talked about, that the document that goes along with it should be given, what kind of language should be used, whatever document is attached, what is being transmitted, related to that area, related to that document's convention, you will also use the language in your transmittal letter. Now in the next lecture, we will look at enquiry letters, which means letters which you will be sending out to people outside your organization, but there will be letters where you will be requesting information of some type, some kind. You will write a letter to some other organization in which you will need enquiry of some type. You might need some material, or you might need some information. If you write a letter to ask for information, or you will write a letter with enquiry, what will be its format and how will you write it? We will look at technical information letters in the next lecture. If you want to give technical information, how will you give it? And letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation normally go out with job applications of people. So, if you need to write a letter of recommendation for somebody who is applying for a job, then we will see how that will be formatted. Another reason why letters of recommendation may be written would be when people are applying for studies. They might come to you because you have been their former employer and you will need to write a letter of recommendation for that. So, whatever the purpose we will look at, how you will form those letters. Note that whatever letter you write, all the elements will be there. That is, heading. You will have the recipient's address. You will have the sender's address. If you are writing a letter of recommendation, the sender's address will be in the letter head. If you are not writing a letter of recommendation, then the sender's address will be above the recipient's address. Then the date will come. Then the recipient's address. After that, the salutation. In which you will write the name of the person who is going to study after a long time. You will write the surname with the title. If you do not know the title, then you will write the full name. Then you will have the main body of the letter, which will include an introductory paragraph. In most cases, a middle paragraph and a closing paragraph, generally of one line. Then you will have the closing salutation or the closure, which will, for business letters, which will always be yours sincerely, or sincerely yours, or just sincerely, or yours truly. Please note that you will never write yours obediently. Also, in the same way, you will never write dear sir or madam in your salutation. After your closure, you will leave four lines for your signature. You will write your name. And if your title is not mentioned in the letterhead, if your company's letterhead is such that your designation is not written in it, then you will write your designation under your name. Beneath that, then you will have the end notations, which can include who the letter has been copied to, whatever enclosures there are. If there are any enclosures, then you will indicate those and the initials of the person who is dictating the letter and the initials of the typist. So, with that, we come to the end of this first session on letters. And I look forward to seeing you next time for lecture 17. Allah Hafiz.