Workbook UNIT 12 - 21st-century news
Exercise
28
Underline the mistakes about conventions for letters and correct them.
Solution
- We put our address and the date at the top of the letter, before the salutation.
- If we know the person’s name, we start ‘Dear…’ and use their title and last name (e.g., Mr. Smith, Ms. Johnson).
- We always address women as Ms. (unless they have specifically indicated a preference for Mrs. or Miss).
- It’s important to refer to why we are writing the letter.
- It’s essential to divide longer letters into paragraphs for clarity and readability.
- If we don’t know the name of the person we’re writing to, we open with ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ or another appropriate salutation and close with ‘Yours sincerely’ or ‘Yours faithfully’ depending on the salutation used.