Writing Personal Letters

Objectives

Through this section, you will learn how to write personal letters

Learn about it!

Today we’re going to talk about letter writing. We write letters to friends, strangers, businesses, government departments, and institutions.

The tone of a letter can be formal or informal, depending on who is going to read it. There are several purposes for writing letters:
1.giving or requesting information
2. giving instruction
3. relating an events
4. giving goods or bad news
5. complaining
6. describing
7. applying for a job

Some letters can include several of these purposes at the same time. Here are some examples.

Letters for ‘giving information’ might include: travel plans, arrival details, what to see and do on holidays.

Letter ‘requesting information’ might be for: course information, library hours, timetable information.

Some letters for ‘giving the instruction’ include: how to get to your house, how to operate a machine, how to open an account.

And letter ‘ relating an events’ such as an incident or accident; a wedding, a holiday

‘Giving good or bad new’ such as canceling an appointment, accepting a job offer, informing of the birth of the baby.

The letter ‘complaining’ might include poor service in a restaurant, loud noise in your district, a problem with faulty goods.

the letter ‘describing’ might be about: lost property, friends, or a place.

the letter ‘applying for a job’ is called the application letter.

The formal letter begins with the greeting

Dear and closing with yours sincerely

Between the top and the button is the body if the letter. We write because we have the purpose. The purposes in giving information, you might write

I am writing to advise that ...

Or for requesting information you might write

I am writing to request information about...

In giving instruction you might write

I am writing to explain how to ...

In giving good news, you can write

I am very happy to tell you that ..

Communication could be conducted not only spoken but also written form. Communication in written form could be done by letter or electronic letter or e-mail. There are two kinds of letter, they are formal and informal letter, personal and institutional letter. The purpose of the letter is depend on the category of the letter. By categories, there are some such as

·         Request

·         Complaint

·         Bussiness

·         Friendy

Personal letters are the letter made by someone based on his/her purpose formally or informally. The institutional letter is the letter which made by the institution formally. In this lesson, we will practice making personal letters for requesting as the situation below.

The words choice on the above letter use informal language, here is the difference between Personal and Formal letter.

Not only the choice of the words, the structure also differs

So the generic structure of Personal Letters is

1.      The sender’s Address

2.      Date

3.      Salutation

4.      Opening Paragraph (purpose of the letter)

5.      Body paragraph (detail information)

6.      Closing Paragraph (expectation)

7.      Complimentary Close

8.      Signature/ Initial of written
Personal letters can be sent conventionally or by using email/electronic mail. Here presented the form of letters sending via email.

Have you ever been to your friend’s birthday party? Before going to the party, your friend gave you a letter or card to invite you. Well, this kind of letter is an example of an invitation letter. In this section, we will not only learn about invitation letters, but we will also learn how to write it on your own! Let’s get started!

Today, Hannah gets an invitation letter from her friend, Diana. She is not sure whether she can go or not because the party is on the same day with her drama rehearsal. The invitation letter is in the picture below.

In your opinion, what party is going to be held by Diana? When and where? If Hannah decided not to come, when does she need to tell Diana?

From the picture, we can get plenty information, we know that:

1. Diana invites Hannah to her birthday party
2. The party will be in Mountana Residence on Sunday, 18 July 2015
3. If Hannah cannot go, she should tell Diana before 10th July. Why? It is because, in the invitation, we can find this information RSVP before 10th July. RSVP means that you have to confirm whether you will come or not.

So, from Diana’s invitation letter, we know that it should have the following elements:

So, in an invitation letter, there should be the name of the host, information of the event, time of the event, a place to conduct the event, and confirmation date.

There are two types of confirmation date, RSVP and Regret Only. In RSVP, we have to confirm whether we will come or not. In Regret Only, we need to confirm only when we cannot come. Moreover, an invitation letter is written in the present tense.

Look at the invitation letter below. The following invitation letter is not written well. What is wrong with the letter?

Do you find the mistake? Well, there are some mistakes in the card. You will find illogical and missing information in Marsha’s Invitation.

Look at the picture below:

See, the letter is written in the past tense (were). It is inappropriate because an invitation letter should be in the present tense. Moreover, the confirmation date is 5th July, while the Birthday Party will be held on 19 June 2015. The invitation letter also missed important information, i.e. the place of the party!
So, how is it? Have you understood what to write in an invitation letter? Are you ready to write your own invitation letter? Let’s check in the next section!

Do you understand?

Hannah is going to perform a drama. Now, she is going to write an invitation letter to invite people to watch her Drama Show but she is confused about what to write. Would you help her? She just wrote some information in her notebook. Here they are:
1. Name of the Drama Show: Sangkuriang
2. Conducted by Teater Bumi
3. Place: Adam Malik Hall, Aceh Street No. 21
4. Time: Monday, 20 August 2015, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Now, try to write an invitation letter to help Hannah. Write it in the template below.

Have you completed the letter above? Now let's compare to the right answer. Here is the complete invitation letter for Hannah.

Keypoints

In this section, you have learned how to write personal letter letters.

the generic structure of Personal Letter is

1.      The sender’s Address

2.      Date

3.      Salutation

4.      Opening Paragraph (purpose of the letter)

5.      Body paragraph (detail information)

6.      Closing Paragraph (expectation)

7.      Complimentary Close

8.      Signature/ Initial of written

In writing an invitation letter, you have to include some information. They are:

1. Name of the Event
2. Name of the Host
3. Time of the Event
4. Place
5. Date of confirmation

There are two kinds of confirmation. They are RSVP and Regret Only. Besides that, remember, the invitation letter should be in the present tense.