The business letter is not different from other sorts of letters excepting that it has a somewhat different purpose. It is not to amuse or to please or to show social courtesy; its object is to get things done, to present facts, to give information, or to ask for it. Its construction is logical and direct rather than imaginative. Its appeal is to the intellect and to the judgment rather than to the feelings or the emotions. "Business English," about which so much has been said in recent years and about which books even have been written, is not a different genus of English from that employed in any other form of prose discourse. We should use the same forms of correct speech and the same sentence structure in doing business whether orally or in writing as we do in making love or in writing an essay or in giving an after-dinner speech, excepting that our approach and our rhetorical style should perhaps sometimes be different.
In a business letter we should get at the thing on hand at once. This does not mean that in writing such a letter we should use the condensed method employed in a telegram and by the omission of subjects, predicates, and articles attempt to say as much as we can in as few words as possible. It is as necessary in a business letter to use complete sentences with all their relationships made evident and with all their physical members intact, as it is in any other sort of letter. Terseness, directness are in no way synonymous with the omission of vital and necessary parts of a sentence.
"Would like catalog of your school," a business man writes me. "Have son who is now in high school and will graduate in spring. Want him to take engineering course. Would like to know cost and possibility of finding good lodging place for him, Yours"
His communication resembles a night letter, kept punctiliously within the conventional fifty words as if he were making a strenuous effort to economize time and to reduce expense, rather than a business letter from an intelligent man who has something normal to say. Translated into English it would read: I should like to have you send me a catalog of your school. I have a son who is now in the high school and who will graduate in the spring. I want him to take an engineering course, and I should like to know how much it will cost and the possibility of finding a good lodging place for him.
Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Clarissa Bishop with reference to certain matters pertaining to the settlement of her estate is an admirable illustration of what a business letter should be like. It is personal and friendly; it does not waste a single word, its sentences are simple and complete, and it goes without circumlocution directly to the point. When you read it you know that it was written by a real man writing to a specific individual.
"A friend of yours, Dr. Cheney, has been consulting me in your behalf about the estate of your late husband. It is not improbable that I shall pass through Le Roy next Sunday; and if I do, I will call to see you.
"I understand your husband died without making a will and without any child; and if this is so, there is no doubt that you, as his widow, are entitled to half of his real estate and all his personal property, after the debts of the estate are paid. Give yourself no uneasiness about this whatever; and be tempted into no bargains or agreements, with interested parties, about this matter."
There is a pretty general feeling, also, that abbreviations, contractions, and figures are not only admissible in a business letter, but that such a letter loses something of its business-like character if they are not used. Certain texts on "Business English" would give this impression. Abbreviations are most frequently an indication of carelessness, or haste, or laziness. They have about the same effect upon the appearance of an otherwise good-looking business letter as a man who goes to a party and who wears no coat. The writer gets on more quickly, but the effect of their use is seldom a pleasing one. The only advantage in using figures instead of words in any letter is that figures economize space and appeal more directly to the eye than do numbers expressed in written words. Their appearance is not so good, and most careful writers do not now use them. Letters written by business men who have given thoughtful attention to form, are not marred by sentences without subjects and verbs, and are remarkably free from all sorts of abbreviations. Brevity is a quality which should be sought, but it is not dependent upon the omission of necessary elements of a sentence, or upon the regular use of abbreviations; it is attained by the elimination of unnecessary details and superfluous qualifying phrases. Directness is a very essential quality in a business letter. When one means "no" it is just as well to say it at once.
"Goshen College has applied for admission to the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools," I wrote a University president a few years ago, "and the executive committee of the Association, knowing that you are acquainted with both the standards of the Association and the equipment and curriculum of the College, would like to know if you think the College comes up to the requirements of the Association and if you are willing unqualifiedly to recommend its admission."
His reply came back in a few days as follows:
"I have known President Cooke of Goshen College for many years and have the very highest regard for him. He and I were in college together, and have kept up our friendship ever since. He is a man of excellent training and of the highest ideals. Since going to Goshen he has reorganized its faculty and materially increased its endowment. He has the confidence and the respect of every one with whom he is associated, and his work and influence in building up the college have been extremely gratifying. He is in every way an excellent executive and a Christian gentleman." And so he rambled on for two pages.
In acknowledging this letter I said, "Your personal relations with President Cooke of Goshen College, I gather from your letter which I have just received, have been very pleasant, and your testimonial as to his character and his work at the college I find interesting. What I want to get, however, is a direct statement as to whether you think the college is at the present time meeting the requirements laid down by the North Central Association and if you would recommend its immediate admission." In his next letter, which consisted of four lines," he said that he was sorry to have to say that he must answer "no" to both of my queries. Through indirectness, in his first letter, he was attempting to evade my questions and to have me draw an entirely false conclusion. He knew what was true, but he wanted to evade the responsibility of stating the truth; he hoped so to disguise the truth that it might appear in a more favorable light than if baldly stated. The same effect is often attained when the writer is in doubt as to just what he wants to say. Like a speaker who has made no preliminary preparation, he wanders on, hoping that by saying a good deal he will ultimately reach something that is direct and definite.
One of the most skilful letter-writers whom I know always very carefully plans his letters before he begins to dictate them. When in his correspondence he comes upon a letter difficult to answer, he lets it go until the next day, takes it home with him at night, and writes out in direct and complete sentences the specific points he wants to make in his reply, very much as he was taught in college to prepare a formal brief for an argument. Then, when he is ready to dictate his letter or to write it out in longhand, he knows what he wants to say, and he gets at it without circumlocution or delay. The man who carefully plans his letters before he begins to write them, especially if they are difficult, saves time, gains clearness, and says more in fewer words than one who rushes in unprepared to tackle a difficult epistolary job.
This last method of planning carefully before putting statements into cold type is especially to be commended if there is a possibility that what one says may be quoted, or passed from one person to another, or used finally as evidence. In such cases one can not be too careful in the expression of what one wants to say.
Every business letter if possible should be complete in itself. It should show at once both the address of the writer and of the one to whom it is written. It should state the business with which it is concerned briefly and clearly. It should not be necessary to see the envelope in which the letter came or, excepting in unusual circumstances, to refer back to previous correspondence to get at the facts essential to the answering of the letter in hand. The references to the subject under consideration should be accurate and full enough to require no further investigation or explanation. I have on my desk as I write these sentences a letter which I can by no possibility answer intelligently until I get further details. The writer's reference to the business under discussion is vague, and his previous correspondence, even when I have dug it out of the files, does not adequately disclose the significance of the matters to which he refers in his last letter. If one has only a very limited correspondence, then he may reasonably be expected to carry in mind most of the details of what has been previously said, but if his letters run from fifty to one hundred or five hundred a day and cover a wide range of topics the case is different. An illustration is before me.
"Your letter with reference to my son's scholastic record for the past semester is before me. Will you not please give me some explanation as to why he has done so badly and how I can help to improve conditions?"
A woman's name is signed to the letter, and it is a very common name. I go through all records of my office to find a son whose home address corresponds to the one the woman had given in her letter, but I can discover none. Then I search through the long list of delinquent students whose parents I have communicated with in recent weeks, and ultimately I find the man I am looking for and the reason for not discovering him more readily. His mother, interesting woman, has been married the second time, and the second husband's name was different from the name of her first husband and consequently different from her son's name. As she had written me once before she had supposed that I would recall this slight irregularity. The omission of the detail which she thought trifling, had, however, cost me the expenditure of a considerable amount of time and energy. When you read your business letter before you sign it, as you always should, make sure that what you have said will not need further investigation or explanation before it is clear to the man who is to receive it.
I have learned nothing more fully during the years that I have done business with various sorts of people than that surprise or the unexpected is the most compelling influence one can use with people. If I call a student to my office to talk over things with him, he has worked out before he comes in all that I am going to say to him and what his defense is to be. If he has been derelict, he has an adequate explanation; if he has been absent from classes, he has a dozen legitimate excuses on his tongue's end. My only hope of getting anywhere is to present my case in a way for which he is not prepared. A clever book salesman comes to see me once a year, and though I think before he makes his annual call that I am all steeled and set for him, I invariably fall, and yet he has never really asked me to buy. He studies my personal tastes, he lays his wares before me alluringly and always in a different manner from the one he employed in any previous year. His coming fascinates me, for I am always anxious and interested to see what new method he will employ to get my trade. I am never fully prepared; he always surprises me; he is practically always too much for me. I think I have never been able to resist him but once. I am wondering now what strategic move he will make next year.
The same principle holds in writing business letters. In nothing else does originality, surprise, the unexpected count more toward bringing success, and in winning your correspondent over to your way of thinking. When you say what he expects you to say, you are dull, and he gives little attention to your line of talk; when you spring the unexpected he wakes up and finds some interest in what you have to say. We are all prepared to meet the conventional; it is only when the unexpected arises that we are taken off our guard.
The father of a student who had failed wrote me a year or two ago. He is a business man in a city of some size in a neighboring state, and though he seems to know business, he doesn't use the English language with the accurate care one might desire.
"Donald says he took French and passed his examination and that his teacher, hurrying off, lost his paper and he got no credit. If that's true I don't think much of your method of running a school after a pupil has done the work and paid the tuition. And you put him on probation on failure of the teacher. It don't look to me like a square deal, and I will give you a chance to explain before I take him out of school. Another study, Rhetoric. He sprained his ankle and couldn't be at the examinations. It looks to me you could of given him an examination without putting him on probation. It looks to me that if a teacher is any good he could of given him a grade on daily recitations. If he isn't doing good work, why not? I will not keep him in school a minute longer unless he is doing good work."
My answer was brief. I stated that the boy's paper in French was not lost but that he had failed the final examination. He did have a sprained ankle, but this fact did not keep him away from his rhetoric test. He was behind in his assignments and would have failed even had he taken the test, and knowing this he did not go. His work at the present time, I said, was not good. If the father wished to withdraw his son, I suggested, that his own state university was an excellent institution. The tuition was somewhat higher than in our own, but the college was nearer his home and he might there find conditions and methods of instruction which would better satisfy him. I think my answer was not what he expected, though it must have been satisfactory to him, for he did not withdraw his son, and when later he visited him he called on me, and we had a very placid interview.
A great many people seem to object to the use of the personal pronoun "I" in business letters. I have never understood why, for it is as good a pronoun as there is in the language, and it expresses as clear and direct a meaning as any word in use. I have known men to go far out of their way to say "we" or "the writer' when they really meant "I." In addition to failing to say what they actually wanted to say, they lost a good deal in directness and in personal appeal. Of course, if one writes as the representative of a firm or a family it is quite right to say "we," but if it is the letter of one individual to another there is no adequate reason why the more personal "I" should not be used. It is self-consciousness or exaggerated modesty to want to conceal your personality by the use of general terms, and such use results in stiffness and formality. It is argued sometimes that in using "we" the writer divides the responsibility for his statements, but he really deceives no one.
In the friendly letter or the letter of courtesy there is almost always a close acquaintanceship or even an intimacy between the correspondents which makes the immediate recognition of the writer of the letter concerned quite easy. Even if the penmanship is obscure or irregular the signature of the writer can always be deciphered without much difficulty. A very different situation, however, obtains as regards the business letter. A great many business letters come from persons one has never heard of before—persons whose names are strange and unfamiliar and almost impossible to decipher. Men often seem to torture their signatures into the most impossible hieroglyphics resembling in no way the characters which we were taught in the elementary schools. The reasons for this illegibility are sometimes haste, sometimes carelessness, and often an attempt to form a signature that would be difficult to imitate or forge. Some of these signatures look more like a Chinese laundry bill than an attempt to write English script. I receive letters regularly from a Boston attorney whose name appended to his communications does not show a single character which has any semblance to anything in the written alphabet in English; I have letters before me from a country banker and a Chicago business man that are as vague to me as the inscriptions of the Rosetta stone. It is only by referring to the names engraved at the top of the sheet that I am able even approximately to guess what the characters are intended to represent. I have been told that my own signature often is not much more intelligible.
Unless a business man has his name printed or engraved somewhere upon his stationery he should write carefully enough for a stranger to recognize his name with a minimum of effort. Anyone can learn to write his name legibly if he will only take the time and the pains. It is conceit to suppose that one is so well known that his signature will be generally recognized no matter how illegibly written it may be. A great many people feel as I do about it, as is proved by the following letter which came to my desk since I began writing these paragraphs:
"I am in receipt of a letter under date of March 23rd written on University of Illinois stationery, by a student in the University who is applying for a place as teacher. I am not able to decipher his or her name, and therefore, am writing to you.
"The name looks as if it might be Arlone Tumley or Artoro Sumley. It may be that the letter is an 'L' or an 'S' or it may be intended for an 'F' and you may be able to find the name listed in your files. Please have this person write me again.
"I am very sorry that a person applying for English work or for any position in the High School can not write well enough to be read." So are we all, say I.
It seems like a silly platitude to insist that business letters, more than other letters in fact, should be answered promptly. There should usually be some acknowledgment on the day on which the letter is received. Neglect and delay in answering important letters is a habit, which one can cultivate, like staying away from Church or sleeping late in the morning. There is little excuse for it but selfishness. Even if one's business does not require that he keep a regular stenographer and makes it necessary for him to write his own letters, yet if he will have a place to keep his unanswered mail and a time for attending to it, the matter will become as regular as meals or as keeping his face washed, and it is in fact quite as important as either of these physical details. An unanswered business letter brands a man as careless and unreliable.
There are a good many types of business letters, but the general style and form of each is about the same. If a printed or engraved letterhead is used, this will take care of a considerable number of details. It will ordinarily indicate the writer's name, business, and business address, with a date line often partially filled in. The envelope in which it is mailed should carry a return card in one corner indicating the name and address of the writer so that the letter may be returned if it cannot be delivered to the one to whom it is written. The return address should be written or printed on the front of the envelope and not on the back as it is done by some men and most women. The letter given below is a satisfactory illustration of the form and content of a good business letter and the envelope containing it:
Phone: Garfield 1702
I. M. Bilderback
Dealer in
Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicles
338-340 Hickory Street
Champaign, Ill.
Mr. John L. Jones,
Henry, Illinois.
My dear Mr. Jones:
Relative to our hasty conversation of last evening in regard to an enclosed car, I wish to refer you to the enclosed statement which coincides precisely with my views as to the automobile situation. First, I assure you that Dodge Brothers' cars will not be reduced in price. Next, I am able to procure cars at present, in fact am accumulating them as fast as my finances will permit.
I have in stock at present a car which I believe will please you and the situation is as follows: I expect to carry some of the cars that I am receiving until March 1. With this in view, I will make you the following proposition. I will deliver you the car immediately and in settlement will take your personal note to March 1, without interest, or, if you prefer paying for it at this time, I will deduct interest at seven percent from the time of delivery to March 1.
Inasmuch as your preference is a closed car, I assure you that winter driving will be fully appreciated in one and with the above proposition you can have the use of both your money and the car.
If you are interested I should be pleased to show you the car at your home at any time.
IMB:D
Enclosure
I. M. Bilderback
Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicles
338-340 Hickory Street
Champaign, Ill.
- Mr. John Henry Jones,
- Henry, Illinois
If an enclosure accompanies the letter it should be mentioned in the body of the letter, and the word enclosure placed at the lower left-hand corner in order that whoever is responsible for placing the enclosure in the envelope may not be required to read the whole letter in order to see what is required. Nothing is more annoying than to receive a letter which was supposed to contain a draft or a circular or a sample of a textile or something or other and then find that the important enclosure has been omitted. "There ought t' be a heavy penalty," Abe Martin says, "fer writin' 'enclosed find clippin',' and then not puttin' th' clippin' in."
Very few business men do more than to read and sign their letters after they have dictated them, and many letters, when the stenographer can be depended upon to write what one has said, are "dictated and not read." A friend of mine signs his letters "read but not dictated," for the reason, he explains, that he likes to convey the impression that he is sufficiently interested in his correspondence and his correspondents to give a little attention to both. There is a suggestion of insolence, of superiority, in the "dictated but not read" that is irritating to not a few people. It is a question whether or not one should admit under his own signature that he thinks so little of the accuracy of what he has written that he is willing to let it go without verifying it. The one who receives such a letter has the right to feel a little slighted, a little humiliated, and especially so if the correspondence is of any especial importance.
It is often very desirable that the writer of a letter should indicate his position or his title. If he is the secretary or the president of the firm, if he is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, or director of the corporation he should indicate this fact below his signature. The importance of what one says is very often influenced largely by one's position, and it is generally wise to indicate this.
Whatever the situation may be the tone of a business letter should always be courteous. "The customer is always right" is a phrase pretty hard to live up to in many instances, but it is always wise to do so. No matter how sarcastic and scathing a letter may be, even if it approach the limit of insult, there is everything to be gained by keeping one's self-possession, and exhibiting self-control. The most effective reply to such a letter is brevity, dignity, and courtesy. The man who will not be thrown off his guard and descend to discourtesy will ultimately win.
A good many people feel that the grammatical, carefully phrased letter with well-constructed sentences and correctly spelled words is essential only when doing business with the cultivated. I listened not long ago to a young college graduate of a middle west institution who was trying to impress me with the practical character of a set of books of which he was trying to dispose. He made all sorts of crude errors, his pronouns seldom revealed any correct relationships, and his verbs were tortured into the weirdest forms.
"Why do you speak so murderously bad?" I asked him when he gave me a chance to say something.
"The ordinary vernacular always makes a hit with the 'hicks,'" he replied, "and it takes me a while to readjust myself when I return to civilization."
I am sure his psychology is wrong, and that care and correctness in speech and in writing is more effective with even the untrained and illiterate than is slovenly, careless, ungrammatical English. The neatest, tidiest letter is always the best one, no matter who receives it.
In general all business letters are alike. They follow the same courteous dignified and impersonal tone. They are cast in the same mechanical form, they employ the same sort of stationery. As to the last, the better the quality and the more conservative the appearance the more effective it is. Cheap, flashy stationery advertises the writer himself as cheap and second-class. There are, however, certain types of business letters which are entitled to a separate and specific treatment.
There is the letter of recommendation. Any one can accumulate a collection of letters of recommendation, and I would almost venture the statement that he can get any one he pleases to write them. The most of such letters that I have been privileged to read say little and say it badly. A letter of recommendation should tell the truth. Ministers and school teachers, in my experience, write the worst ones and are most likely to show little respect for the principles of truth. They often injure rather than help the people whom they flagrantly praise by painting for them a character which it is impossible for even a saint in Heaven to live up to. When any one in a letter of recommendation tells more than the truth, he does the person recommended a real damage; even the truth that he tells is eventually discredited. Such a letter need not be confined wholly to words of praise. When we recommend men we are talking about human beings who, as nearly perfect as they may be, must still have some qualities which might be improved upon. One gives the strongest impression of sincerity when one mentions the weaknesses as well as the strong points of a person about whom he is writing.
I recall that I won the everlasting enmity of a young fellow at one time who got hold of a letter I had written about him in which I had said that he "lacked aggressiveness." The young man argued that if he asked me to write about him I was under obligations to say only such things as would help him to get the position he desired or would be complimentary or creditable to him. If I could not say these things, he felt that I should not write at all. He was on the whole a good man, but he could not see that a frank truthful presentation of his qualities was more likely to help him along than a flattering untruthful description. Which leads me to say also that a letter of recommendation is the property of the man to whom it is addressed. It is in the nature of a confidential statement from the writer to the one written to. It is discourtesy and a breach of confidence to put it, without the consent of the writer, into the hands of the one about whom it is written.
When I have a man recommended to me I want to know something of his training, his age, his experience, his character. If he has specially attractive qualities or traits, if he has special talents, if he is possessed of idiosyncrasies, I am glad to be prepared for these. It ought to be possible to say something individual about any man, for no two of us are alike. "Mr. George Ward came to me directly from college and has been my secretary for three years," wrote a friend of mine. "He is not so diplomatic at all times as I should wish, but he is dependable, he is loyal, he is intelligent, and he likes to work. I have never given him any piece of work to do, no matter how difficult, that he did not do well. It will give me no discomfort if he is willing to stay with me." It was a good picture of an efficient man. Sometimes one is asked to recommend a man for a position for which he seems to have no qualifications. The only reasonable thing to do in such a case is to tell the man that from your point of view he is not suited for the job that he is wanting to fill and that you can not conscientiously recommend him. Such a course is the only way to be truthful and just to the employer and his prospective employee. It takes courage to do it, but in the end it pays.
I believe I have written more letters of recommendation than any other man living of my age, because the college student and the college graduate are persistently looking for a job where references are required, and I have been a willing victim. Nearly every mail brings me in such requests, and yet I do not recall that many fellows have asked my permission to give my name as reference or have thanked me for the letter that I wrote. If you give a man as reference, the least you can do is to ask his permission beforehand or to announce to him what you have done, and if you ask him to write a letter for you, the minimum compensation you can offer him is to thank him.
Then there is the application for employment, the attempt to get a job by mail. It is a rather delicate matter to blow one's own horn effectively. There is always the danger of sounding too faint a note and of not being heard over the footlights; there is the opposite difficulty to avoid of turning on too much wind and of overdoing the job. How much to say in one's own behalf and how much to omit calls for a rare judgment. I have often asked men who have come to me for letters of recommendation to write out what they honestly thought could be said in commendation of themselves; but I have seldom had anyone who did it well. One man only I recall who wrote a discriminating and satisfactory letter about himself that I would have been willing to sign my name to and send out in the mails.
Frankness is a good quality to reveal. If you have been well trained, if you have had some experience in the work which you are wanting to take up, if you are willing to work hard and to rest your advancement upon your ability to do the business, these are good things to say, and they are likely to make a fair impression upon the man who reads your letter. Most men who apply for a position offer little and ask a good deal. When you suggest, as they do in advertisements, that you are willing to rest your case upon your merits, that "the goods may be returned if not satisfactory," you reveal a certain confidence and belief in your own powers and ability that will be sure to make an appeal. A reasonable confidence in yourself begets confidence on the part of others. If you have letters of recommendation it is well to enclose these, but it is better still to give references, since the letters that are enclosed, and which you have yourself seen, must of necessity be less frank and more guarded in their statements than one which is written directly to the employer concerned. Even though he tells the truth about you, the writer of a letter will do it in a very different way from what he would if he were sure you would never see the letter.
The mechanical construction of the letter which you write and its appearance will have much to do in determining your success in winning attention and getting a job. Good form, legible penmanship, correct spelling and sentence structure all have weight in settling your fate. I have known more than one appointment to turn upon a superfluous period or a misplaced comma or a misspelled word. These all seem trifles, but when the race is close, then the decision goes to the man whose attention to small details has been most punctilious. The same suggestions as I have just given apply in a large degree to a reply to an advertisement for help. A good letter in this case is like a good front page in a newspaper or a pleasing personality in a first acquaintance.
There is another type of business letter which is so difficult to write courteously and in good temper that it usually proves too much for the inexperienced; that is the letter calling attention to an error and asking that it be corrected. There is usually the indication of annoyance in such a letter, and the imputation that, if the error was not intentional, it was at least the result of inexcusable carelessness. I recall a very distressing error which I made during the epidemic of influenza in 1918. It was my daily task among a thousand others to send letters and telegrams to the parents of our undergraduates who were seriously ill in order that the home folks should be kept informed as to their condition. Late one evening the head nurse at the hospital telephoned me that Robert Reed was seriously ill and that I should write his parents. I asked the office to look up Reed's home address and the name and address of his father, and I wrote the letter. Then a few hours later I discovered that there were two Robert Reeds and that I had sent the disturbing letter to the wrong father. I hastily dispatched a telegram to the proper father and caught the other parents before they had time to get away from home. I had a letter from the first Mr. Reed in a few days which showed that he at least knew how gracefully to accept the correction of an error. He was so thankful, he said, to find by my second message that his son was quite well, that he willingly overlooked my mistake which he understood was, under the circumstances, quite an excusable one. I have always remembered him as one of the real gentlemen with whom I have had to do business.
One of the first things to keep in mind when a mistake has been made is that there is no likelihood of its having been intentionally made. Every one who makes mis' takes soon learns that he pays a heavy price usually for his error, so that he would rather be right than not. Any right-minded business man is willing at once to make his mistakes good, and usually all that is necessary is to put the fact before him pleasantly, and he will do the rest. Unless we have never ourselves made mistakes we should not fly into a rage when other people do so.
In the writing of any sort of business letter, and there are a great many special kinds which I have not mentioned, we should be helped in determining what line of procedure to follow if, for a moment, we attempted to put ourselves into the position of the man to whom we are writing. It is largely a matter of psychology, of trying to understand how men's minds work, how they are most easily affected, what appeals to them most. If we would study ourselves more carefully we should know better how to appeal to other men, for in a very large degree we are all alike.