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The Letter Writer

Letters and e-mails are essential business tools, and this course will help you to ensure that yours make the right impression and get the right results. It provides valuable guidance on modern practice, writing techniques, good business style, common errors and technical issues. This, together with relevant exercises and individual support, will enable you to develop the skills and confidence of a professional communicator.

Your course manual - the Desktop Guide to Writing Letters and E-mails - will become a valuable reference book when you return to the office. It describes all the topics in detail and includes quick-reference sections and useful checklists. You will also be entitled to one year of post-course support via e-mail, giving you access to further help and advice.

In February 2011 Stephen Lloyd was interviewed by Financial Times journalist Rhymer Rigby about how to write a successful covering letter. For the full article please go to www.ft.com and search for “The careerist: Writing a covering letter”.

The details

Course details

Summary

  • 1 day

  • 9.30 am–5.00 pm

  • Small groups

  • Certificates

  • A year of free support

  • £395.00 + VAT

  • A 20% discount is available to charities and local authorities

Book on-line

Course venues

View all course dates

"A great course. I enjoyed it and learnt a lot."

Lynnette Bruynius
Legal PA
EMW Law

 

Locations and dates

Course programme

Course programme

Overview

  • The changing roles of letters and e-mails

  • Letter or e-mail - which is appropriate?

    • What is your subject?

    • How formal do you want to be?

    • How urgent is your message?

    • When is telephoning better?


 

Writing letters

  • The conventions

    • Layout

    • Salutations

    • Closes

    • Postscripts

  • Creating a clear and logical structure

    • Essential principles

    • Useful models for structuring letters

  • Making a strong start

    • Writing opening sentences

    • Discussion of various approaches

  • Good business style

    • Matching your tone to the reader and the purpose

    • Choosing and using words with care

    • Side-stepping jargon and overworked phrases

    • Reviewing sentence length and structure

    • Ensuring consistency

    • Avoiding ambiguity

  • Coming to a good end

    • Techniques for strong endings

    • How to test your endings

  • Guidelines for specific types of letter

    • Promoting products and services

    • Being persuasive

    • Responding to complaints

    • Providing information

    • Asking for action

  • Exercises and feedback


 

Writing e-mails

  • Why e-mail is a special case

    • How e-mail differs from other documents

    • The potential pitfalls

  • Guidelines for effective e-mails

    • Using the subject line well

    • Thinking about structure

    • Taking care over tone

    • Getting your message across clearly and succinctly

  • Common questions answered

    • How should I begin an e-mail - Hi, Good morning, Dear John?

    • How much can I say?

    • Can I use headings?

    • When should I use an attachment?

    • How should I end an e-mail - Cheers, Yours, Kind regards?

  • Technical topics

    • Plain text or HTML format?

    • Design and layout

    • E-mail security

  • Exercises and feedback


 

Revising the essentials

  • Grammar

    • The good grammar guide

  • Punctuation

    • Punctuation - a refresher

  • Exercises and feedback

How to book
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