{"id":97,"date":"2009-05-17T15:48:41","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T15:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=97"},"modified":"2009-05-21T16:09:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T16:09:39","slug":"formal-letter-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/17\/formal-letter-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Formal letter writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing formal letters, especially covering letters for job applications, can be a daunting task. You’ve got to start off with the correct salutation, clearly and concisely convey your message, and then there’s the sign-off. Is it “sincerely<\/em>“? Or “faithfully<\/em>“? “Best wishes<\/em>“? “Kind regards<\/em>“?<\/p>\n

The rules are fairly simple. If your salutation is “Dear Sir\/Madam”, always use “yours faithfully<\/em>“. If addressing a person by name (for example, “Dear Mr Jones,”), you should use “yours sincerely<\/em>“. Taking out the “yours” from “yours sincerely” is also an acceptable alternative.<\/p>\n

“Best wishes<\/em>“, “kind regards<\/em>” and the like are much more informal. They can be used between friends and work colleagues who have established a relationship. I like “kind regards<\/em>” as an email sign-off as it denotes more friendliness than “regards<\/em>” whilst also maintaining a formal and professional air. Anything that involves “hugs” should be kept strictly between close personal friends!<\/p>\n

An extra thing to note is that whether using ‘sincerely’ or ‘faithfully’, the first letter is never <\/strong>capitalized.<\/p>\n

There’s a handy guide here<\/a> with some good opening and closing lines as well as setting out “yours faithfully” and “yours sincerely” as I have explained above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing formal letters, especially covering letters for job applications, can be a daunting task. You’ve got to start off with the correct salutation, clearly and concisely convey your message, and then there’s the sign-off. Is it “sincerely“? Or “faithfully“? “Best wishes“? “Kind regards“? The rules are fairly simple. If your salutation is “Dear Sir\/Madam”, always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[71,69,70,72],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-hints-and-tips","tag-correspondence","tag-formal","tag-letter","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}