Miscellaneous Correspondence

 

This covers a wide variety of correspondence with varying levels of formality. For example travel reservations, appointments, hospitality and special occasions such as congratulations, messages of condolence or seasonal greetings. Below are some points that you should keep in mind when writing.

 

 

Points to remember

 

1. The conventions of social correspondence are much the same as those for business correspondence. You should consider the relationship between yourself and the receiver. You should choose not only the most appropriate language but also consider the most suitable medium, e.g. a letter, card or e-mail.

 

2. Letters of invitations should state clearly where and when the event will take place, and give some indication of its formality so that guests can dress appropriately.

 

3. When cancelling an appointment you should say why you are unable to keep it and offer an alternative day/time if possible.

 

4. Letters of condolence or congratulation should never be written on someone else's behalf.

 

5. Personal correspondence on special occasions should be short, simple, and sincere.

 

 

 

Activities

You will find 3 activities below. The first activity helps you to practice preposition use. The second is designed to help you develop your formal language skills and the third looks at how to put information into a letter. Complete the activities and put the information on your wiki.

 

 

1) Prepositions

 Below you will find a number of sentences used in general and social correspondence by joining phrases from column A and column B with one of the prepositions.

You will need to use some of the prepositions more than once, but each phrase should be used only once.

 

by      for     with        on

 

 

Column A	Column B
I would like to congratulate you      Please send me the tickets     The office will be closed     She offers her apologies     I would like to speak     Please confirm these reservations     We will need a conference room.   We will be returning to the office	Christmas     your promotion.      you regarding the new project.   our room at the hotel.   the inconvenience.   my trip to Canada.   the meeting on Friday.   charter bus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Formal and informal English

Complete the following sentences so that they have a similar meaning to the one above, but are more suitable for formal business correspondence.

 

1.   He's sorry he can't come, but hopes he can come another time.

 

He sends his _______________________________________________________________________________________.

 

2.   It's such a shame that your brother is ill. I'm really sorry.

 

I was sorry ________________________________________________________________________________________.

 

3.   So you've been elected Chairman of the company! Well done!

 

I would like ________________________________________________________________________________________.

 

4.  Mr Norman wants to drop in on you next week about the contract.

 

Mr Norman would ____________________________________________________________________________________.

 

5.  Mr Chung can't see you on Friday for your appointment after all.

 

Unfortunately, ______________________________________________________________________________________.

 

6.  Can you come to our Sales Conference on 18 March?

 

We would like ______________________________________________________________________________________.

 

7.   Thanks for helping me while I was in Hamburg last week.

 

I would ____________________________________________________________________________________________.

 

8.  It'll be good to see you on Friday.

 

I look _____________________________________________________________________________________________.

 

 

3) A letter 

Read the information below. Write a correspondence letter that uses appropriate tone and word choice that includes all of the required needs for this event.

 

Conference facilities:

 

Diane Taylor, Sales Director of Data Unlimited PLC, has emailed her PA, Lynn Paul, with details of a sales conference she is planning for December.

As Lynn Paul, draft the letter she mentions.