TYPES OF LETTERS

 Formal Letter
A formal letter is to someone you know in a formal way (a landlord, a boss, a manager, a teacher
etc) or someone you have not met and whose name you don’t know (customer services, local
council, hotel manager etc) about a serious or formal situation.

You are interested in applying for a scholarship program to study at a foreign University.
Write a letter to inquire about the course. In your letter:

 explain which course you are interested in

 tell what you know about the University
 explain why you should receive the scholarship

 Semi-Formal Letter
A semi-formal letter is to someone you have a close personal relationship with, such as a friend,
about a formal or serious situation such as work. This means it’s to someone you know
informally about something formal = semi-formal. Note: A personal relationship means you
share your private life (your home life) with that person = a friend. It does not mean your
teacher, your boss, your manager or anyone else you know in a formal setting such as school or
work.

Your friend has a travel company and would like you to come and work with him.
Write a letter replying to your friends offer. In your letter:

 explain what you know about your friends company

 choose whether you accept or decline the offer
 give reasons for your choice

 Personal Letter
A personal letter is to someone you have a close personal relationship with about a social
situation or personal situation.

You would like to invite a foreign friend to visit you for your birthday
Write a letter inviting your friend. In your letter:

 tell your friend about your birthday

 explain how much the visit would mean to you
 suggest that your friend stays at your house for the visit
AIM OF A LETTER

 Complaint (usually formal)

 Invitation (usually personal or semi-formal)
 Application or resignation (usually formal)
 Request (Formal / Semi-formal / Personal)
 Making arrangements (often formal)
 Explanation (sometimes semi-formal or personal)
 Informative / news letter (Formal / Semi-formal / Personal)
 Apology (Formal / Semi-formal / Personal)

Structure of a letter

 Title

 opening statement – reason for writing

 body paragraph A (one point with detail)

 body paragraph B (another point with detail)

 body paragraph C (final point with detail)

 Closing statement (if needed)

 Signing off

 name (choose a name or use your own)

Sign off

Formal Letters

 Dear Sir/Madame, (You use this when you don’t know the name of the person: hotel manager, sales representative etc.)

Yours faithfully, [John Bolton (always with a family name but with or without a title) ]

 Dear Mr. Ahmed, (This is when you know the name of the person )

Yours sincerely, [John Bolton (always with a family name but with or without a title)]

 Dear Ahmed Ibrahim, (This is when you know the name of the person )

Yours sincerely,

Semi-Formal / Personal Letters

Hi Ahmed, Dear Ahmed,

See you soon, Take care, All the best, [John (no title and no family name because it is informal)]
Closing Statement

Formal Letter

I look forward to hearing from you.

Personal Letter

It’ll be great to catch up again soon. Give my best to everyone in the family.

GRAMMAR
Informal letters can contain contractions (I’m writing …), these contractions are unacceptable in formal
writing so you need to write the words in full (I am writing …).

In a formal letter, you could write “I am writing with regards to ….”. Whereas for a semi-formal letter
you can write “I’m writing about…” or “I’m writing to say..” or “I just want to let you know that..”.

PUNCTUATION

Commas and full stops.

WORD COUNT: 170 -190 WORDS

VOCABULARY
Do not use academic vocabulary in personal in a personal letter.

Formal Letter Personal Letter

You will be collected at the airport I’ll pick you up at the airport
The next available appointment is on Thursday how about we meet up on Thursday?
I would like to invite you to visit my house on…. Why don’t you pop round to my place on …..
I highly recommend it’d be great if you came in August
that you come in August
Please respond at the earliest convenience Get back to me as soon as you can
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend on … Sorry, but I won’t be able to make it on ….
FORMAL LETTER (Complaint letter)

You bought a TV a week ago but when you got home you discovered it did not work properly. You called
customer service to report the problem but you have not yet received any help.

Write a letter to the company and in your letter:

 introduce yourself

 explain the problem

 and state what action you would like from the company

___________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is Ahmed and I am one of your frequent customers. I am writing this letter to report the faulty
TV that I purchased from your company on Tuesday last week.

On Tuesday, 12th June, I visited your store to purchase a TV. I bought a Toshiba LED TV which has the
code 40L675B40. On purchasing this TV, I was assured that this was the latest model and the best there
was to buy. However, when I got home I discovered that not only did the remote controls not work but
also the quality of the picture was not as good as promised, in fact it was quite blurry. I called your
customer service department immediately on Tuesday and they assured me that my TV would be
replaced or fixed within two days. I am disappointed to say that this has not happened and I have
received no communication since then.

I am exceedingly displeased with both the quality of the product I purchased from your company as well
as the poor service I have received since. I hope this problem will be resolved promptly. I expect to
receive a replacement TV or have my current TV repaired but only if it could be fixed within a day.

I look forward to hearing back from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,

Mr J H Davidson
SEMI FORMAL LETTER

Your friend has a travel company and would like you to come and work with him.

Write a letter replying to your friends offer. In your letter:

 explain what you know about your friends company

 choose whether you accept or decline the offer

 give reasons for your choice

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Ahmed,

How are you? It was a pleasant surprise to receive your letter last Monday. I must confess I have not
been in touch as frequently as I should have but you have never been away from my thought. I want to
let you know about the job offer that you extended to me recently.

Apparently, this company, along with arranging leisure tours and trips, is also into arranging academic
tours. I had searched about it lately and was ecstatic to know that your company is thriving.

However, I regret to turn down the offer although it was an honor that you have offered me a position
in your company.

I have recently started working in a bank as a junior officer. This is a dream job for me and I am very
happy to have been recruited there.

I am so happy for you and I am sure you will excel in your company rapidly. Please convey my best
wishes to your family.

All the best,

Ali
PERSONAL LETTER 1 (Apology Letter)

Write a letter to your friend. You have borrowed something from your friend and it got damaged.

 Apologize for damaging the product

 Explain what happened

 Say how you are going to fix the issue

___________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sarah,

Hi. How are you? I’m writing to you to express my sincere apologies for not returning the USB drive on
time, as I promised you.

To be honest with you, I’ve been feeling terrible and so guilty for not keeping my word. I have to own up
to you that I lost all the data that was stored in your USB drive accidentally. I know how these photos
are valuable to you and your husband as they were of your first baby when you were in the United
States of America.

What happened is that I was surfing the web and downloading some images. Unfortunately, one of the
downloaded images was infected by a virus that spread all over my laptop. Badly, it was a ransomware
virus that encrypts all the files. I directly disconnected my laptop from the Internet, but it was too late.
All the photos were encrypted and no longer accessible.

My friend told me about an engineer who is professional in reverse engineering, and he promised me
that he could decrypt the files. In fact, the process is not easy, and he needs time to get it solved and to
guess the most efficient decryption algorithm. The good news is that the engineer confirmed to me that
he had resolved hundreds of cases similar to mine, so let’s cross our fingers.

Again, I’m so sorry for the delay. I hope you understand and forgive me.

Best wishes,
Ahmed
PERSONAL LETTER 2 (Invitation Letter)

Last month you had an overseas holiday with some friends where you stayed at their house. They have
just sent you some holiday photos.

Write a letter to your friends. In your letter:

 thank them for the holiday and the photos

 explain why you didn’t write earlier

 invite them to come and stay with you

____________________________________________________________________________________

Hi Ahmed and Sara,

How are you both? I hope this letter finds you well. Although it’s such a short time since we last saw
each other, it feels much longer.

Thank you so much not only for such a memorable holiday but also for the lovely photos that you sent of
our holiday together. It brought it all back to me so vividly. Staying with you and seeing where you live
was a real eye-opener for me. Australia is certainly a scenic country with remarkable landscape and
wildlife, particularly up in the north where you are.

Sorry, it has taken me so long to write back and thank you. Almost as soon as we landed back in the US,
my mother became sick. Since then we’ve been running around looking after her. She seems to be
improving now and hopefully will be back to normal soon.

Next month, we’ll be celebrating our Wedding Anniversary and we’d be delighted if you could come
over to celebrate it with us. It’ll be a chance for you to meet the rest of the family and see a bit of New
York. Of course, you must stay with us. There’s plenty of room and we’ll pick you up at the airport. I
really hope you can make it.

Take care and write back soon.

Ali