Everything You Need to Know about How to Write a Letter

How to start a letter, what type of letter you should write, what letter format you should choose—everyone should be familiar with these basics of letter writing. Here’s the information you need to know, along with some helpful examples.

What Type of Letter Should You Write?

There are no hard-and-fast rules. What letter format you choose depends on your audience. For a friend or close relative, a casual, handwritten message is usually the best way to go. However, for business contacts or people you don’t know well, a typed formal letter is almost always the most appropriate choice.

Before You Start a Letter

Formal letters begin with the sender’s name and address. Some companies use special paper, called letterhead, that includes contact information.

Brenda Houser 321 Hyacinth Lane Culver City, CA 90230

The next line of a formal letter and the first line of an informal letter is the date. Write it two lines after your address or at the top of a casual letter.

December 1, 2017

12 January 2018

Additionally, formal letters need the name and address of the recipient two spaces after the date. Incorporating all this information ensures that your letter can be used as a reference to contact you after the recipient discards the envelope.

Business Corporation 555 Industry Street San Francisco, CA 94104

How to Start a Letter

Finally, you’re ready to greet the person (or business) to whom you’re writing. Skip a space from any addresses you’ve included. Casual letters are easy; you can start with “Hello” or another customary greeting. Formal letters begin with “Dear” followed by the name of the receiver. If you don’t have a contact at a certain company, search online for a name, a job title, or department. For example, you might try “Dear Manager” or “Dear Human Resources Department.” As a last resort, use the generic salutation “To Whom It May Concern.” A comma follows all greetings.

Dear Ms. Abercrombie,

Dear University of Illinois Staff,

The Body of the Letter

The content of your letter will vary, so let’s focus on some general guidelines.

Do. . . keep it focused. Business letters should have a clear objective. Even personal letters shouldn’t ramble. Proofread. Errors can cause misunderstandings.

Don’t. . . use contractions in formal letters. And definitely avoid writing anything you’ll regret being recorded for posterity.

How to End a Letter

Leave a blank space between your closing paragraph and the complimentary closing. A complimentary close is a polite way to send your regards to your receiver. One of the most common closers is “Sincerely,” and it’s generally a safe bet. If you have a warmer relationship with the recipient, you can sign off with “Warm regards” or “Cordially.” There are dozens of options, so you’ll have to do a little research to determine which is best for you. Commas follow all complimentary closings. Remember, only the first letter of the phrase is capitalized. Leave another couple of spaces for the last step—your signature! Type your full name underneath it in formal letters.

Best wishes, signature Theresa Grant

With sincere gratitude, Signature Dr. Malcolm J. Carl, Jr.

What’s P.S.?

P.S. stands for postscript. It’s something you add at the last minute after the letter is complete. Typically, you don’t add postscripts to formal letters; if you need to add something, you’ll have to revise the whole document to include the new information.

P.S. Rob got the position at Great Company! Thanks for all the support during his unemployment.

The Envelope

In the United States, the maximum weight for a first-class letter is 3.5 ounces. If your letter is more than three pages or you’ve written it on heavy paper, you’ll have to weigh it to make sure it meets the requirements. The size and shape of the envelope matter too. It has to be rectangular and less than roughly 6×11 inches or you run the risk of the post office returning it.

Sending a Letter

After you’ve determined that the envelope is the right kind, the hardest part is over. Now, you just have to mail it. (If it’s a personal letter, you can always deliver it yourself. In that case, just write the intended recipient’s name on the outside of the envelope. A bonus of hand-delivery?: You can use any size or shape envelope that you want!) In the top left-hand corner, write your name and address or attach a mailing label. In the center of the envelope, carefully write the address of the recipient. Besides the state abbreviation and zip code, international letters should include the country for both the destination and return address. Postage rates vary. Check the USPS website for current prices or use a forever stamp for US destinations. Double-check that everything is correct on the outside of the envelope. If it is, fold your letter and insert it inside neatly. Don’t seal it until you’re sure that you’ve included every page you intend to send.

Doesn’t it feel good sending a letter that you know you’ve carefully prepared? Certainly, a well-written letter has the best chance of accomplishing its purpose. But what about a cover letter for a job application? Cover letters have their own set of best practices. Read everything you need to know about how to write a cover letter before you send out your next resume!

9 Skills You Need to Master Before You Become a Manager

There’s no doubt that being a manager has its perks — increased prestige, recognition from upper management, and a higher paycheck among them. But as with anything worth aspiring to, it’s not all fun and games. As a manager, there are plenty of times you’ll find yourself in tough spots. Maybe you need to let someone know they’re no longer a good fit for their role or smooth things over with an upset client.

Because of that, it’s important that you don’t simply jump into a management role without having prepared for it first. If you want to do it right, there are a number of skill sets that you should build up first. So before you throw your hat in the ring for a manager position, make sure that you’ve got these nine traits down pat.

1. An Understanding of Budget and Financials

Even if you don’t work in a particularly quantitative field, understanding budget and finance is critical if you want to climb up the corporate ladder. The higher you go, the more people expect you to prove the impact that you and your team are making.

“Managers must always know what the numbers mean: how they were derived and what they may or may not hide,” says Roy Cohen, career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide. “As a manager, you cannot blame others for mistakes if you are clueless about the process by which they are reported. It is viewed as lazy and irresponsible. Even if you overlook a flaw at least you can explain why the oversight occurred.”

Suffering from numbers-phobia? Don’t worry — you can easily brush up your skills if you take a course in accounting, budgeting, or spreadsheet analysis, Cohen says.

2. Delegation

Control freaks, you’ll want to pay especially close attention to this one. As a manager, you’re tasked with not only your own projects but also overseeing others. With that added level of responsibility, you often simply won’t have the time to single-handedly take on everything that needs to get done. And when that moment comes, you need to know how to hand it off.

“An important part of getting things done as a manager comes through delegation,” says career coach Angela Copeland. “You have to learn to let go and rely on your team. And, most of all, you’ve got to trust them. The happiest employees are those who feel they have a supportive boss who trusts them to get the job done.”

3. Prioritization

On a similar note, the limited bandwidth and resources you’ll have as a manager will also make identifying the most mission-critical projects and tasks essential.

“As a new manager, you will inevitably be asked to take on more than you and your team have the time or budget to do,” Copeland says. “The ability to prioritize initiatives will propel your management career forward. It will allow you to set reasonable expectations for your manager, and will help shield your employees from burnout.”

4. Basic Technology

If you don’t already know your way around a spreadsheet or PowerPoint, it’s high time that you start figuring it out.

“The ability to prepare spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and other documents is a lifesaver for executives who cannot always rely on administrative support; particularly for those who are road warriors or who work for leanly staffed companies,” Cohen says. “The same [goes] for a basic understanding of tech troubleshooting. When you are dependent on those who are junior to you to rescue you from a crisis, you lose your power and authority.”

5. Communication

Strong communication skills are always a boon in the workplace, but if you’re leading a team, they go from a plus to a must. You’ll likely find yourself having to provide constructive feedback, navigate crises, and possibly even let people go — all of which require a delicate hand.

“Hard conversations are important as they cause growth and change. But, change is also painful, so these conversations are not easy. To be an effective manager, you have to be prepared for the hard conversations,” Copeland says.

6. Emotional Intelligence

One of the traits that will help you hold these difficult conversations? Emotional intelligence.

“A huge part of developing and retaining successful employees boils down to emotional intelligence,” Copeland continues. “Having empathy and an understanding of others will help you to motivate your employees to get on board with your vision. This is also a critical skill when it comes to selling your ideas to higher level executives.”

7. Project Management

Being a manager means you can no longer shrug off the missteps of others on your team, brushing it off as not your fault since you took care of the individual items you were assigned. As a more senior employee, you’ll be expected to see things through from start to finish — no ifs, ands, or buts.

“Project management represents virtually every aspect of your role as a manager,” Cohen says. “No matter what your role and responsibilities as a manager [are], you will need to know how to motivate and inspire high performing teams to work together collaboratively and with a shared commitment.”

Don’t worry if you aren’t a certified professional project manager, though, says Cohen. “You just need to understand the process and to appreciate that members of your team each bring different work styles and motivators to their job. It may be enough to read a book on effective project management and leadership. Perhaps identify a senior mentor to help you stay on track,” he suggests.

8. In-the-Trenches Experience

However, just because you’re spearheading a project doesn’t mean you won’t be expected to get your hands dirty with day-to-day execution, either.

“Be willing to roll up your sleeves. When your team knows that you can perform in the job in a pinch, they are less likely to cut corners and you are better able to establish both your authority and credibility quickly,” Cohen says. “Work alongside them on occasion as a reminder that you know your stuff.”

9. Backbone

Being a manager often requires you to make tough decisions and stand up for what you believe in.

“Being a manager will push your boundaries of right and wrong. Before becoming a manager, you need to develop a strong sense of your personal values and the courage to stick up for them,” Copeland says. “You should be comfortable standing up for what’s right, even when it’s not comfortable. Your employer and future employees will thank you.”

It’s important to develop empathy, but still know “the difference between BS and the truth,” adds Cohen. “Good managers are fair and reasonable. But they are not milquetoast. They have learned how to be assertive while identifying and addressing their own weaknesses.”

A version of this post originally appeared on Glassdoor’s blog.

Introducing Grammarly Insights

Stats. They are everywhere. They are in your sports, your weather forecast, and now they are being used by Grammarly, too. Unlike that statistics class you took that one time, Grammarly Insights are designed to provide you with useful information about how you write.

Some of you may have noticed that we started sending you a weekly progress report via email each Monday. Many Grammarly users spend more time writing online than they may realize. Think about it. Between emails, blog posts, and status updates, our users are writing the equivalent of a novel each month, on average. That’s a lot of words! But what does that mean for you? Well, read on to find out.

This progress report is an analysis of your writing with Grammarly and provides insights that may help you to become an even better writer. Your progress report looks at three main components of your writing: activity, mastery, and vocabulary.

ACTIVITY

Activity measures your total word count for the week and also shows how often you used Grammarly compared to all Grammarly users. Our most active users are those who are utilizing our free browser extension in addition to our web-based Editor (or Grammarly for Microsoft(R) Office). Hey, all those status updates and emails really start to add up!

 

MASTERY

Mastery analyzes how many (or how few) mistakes you corrected with Grammarly as it relates to total words written. The fewer mistakes you need to correct with Grammarly, the more accurately you write. You can also see how well you did compared to all Grammarly users.

VOCABULARY

Vocabulary examines your lexicon and word usage. This section will show you how many unique words you’ve written throughout the prior week. The percentage shown lets you know how dynamic—meaning, how varied and diverse—your vocabulary is relative to Grammarly users.

TOP GRAMMAR MISTAKES

Everyone makes mistakes. This section is designed to prevent you from making the same mistakes twice— or 17 times. This is where you’ll find the exact term for your three most frequent grammatical errors corrected with Grammarly.

SPELLING ADVERSARIES

From time to time you’ll notice this section of your report. Your Spelling Adversaries points out the word you most frequently corrected with Grammarly within the previous week.

OVERUSED WORDS

This section highlights the words you tend to use the most in your writing. Beneath each overused word, we suggest five synonyms you can use to enhance your vocabulary and perfect your writing.

 

 

Lastly, Grammarly Insights starts each week with a helpful writing tip. We include these tips each week to help guide your writing.

Have you received your Grammarly Insights digest yet? If not, sign up for Grammarly today and see a difference in your writing. We are constantly refining Grammarly Insights and looking for more ways to keep our writers engaged. We hope this new weekly email will be insightful for you! If you have any questions about Grammarly Insights or if you have suggestions for making it better, feel free to reach out to us via email: support@grammarly.com.

Office Snacks that Will Lead to Better Writing

You may not think about it much, but having a brain and using it requires a lot of energy.

Despite making up just 2 percent of the average adult’s body weight, the brain uses more than 20 percent of the body’s total energy. There’s no 80/20 rule at work here; the human brain is far and away the most energy-consumptive organ in the body.

And that’s not all.

According to brain studies, the amount of fuel needed for your brain is constant, meaning your brain is always hungry.

Despite the significant energy demands of your brain—not to mention the other 98 percent of you—it’s not a given that if you eat enough, you will improve brain function, write better, and take over the world. In fact, poor food choices throughout the day often derail your productivity rather than fuel it. Healthy food choices will do much more than simply feed you and your brilliant brain—they will make it easier for you to concentrate, increase bloodflow to your noggin, boost your mood, and keep you satiated.

There are a lot of scientific reasons that unhealthy food can be so damaging while healthy food can be your gateway to becoming the next superhuman (or something like it). Most of the difference comes down to vitamin and mineral content per calorie and how quickly your body metabolizes the food. We won’t get too much into the science here, but we can give you some guidelines and ideas to take your snacking game—and performance—to the next level.

How to Snack Like a Productivity Genius

Follow these simple guidelines to choose healthy office snacks that will power your creativity and productivity.

• Avoid high carbohydrate foods or simple carbohydrates. To prevent blood glucose and insulin spikes, pass on foods like baked goods, candies, sugar, etc. Peaks and troughs in your blood glucose and insulin levels in the short-term will leave you hungry, craving more, and likely distracted. In the long-term, there’s mounting evidence that sharp fluctuations in insulin levels contribute to the development of a number of metabolic disorders like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and even cancers.
• Eat your vitamins and minerals. Whole-food fruits and vegetables of a variety of colors pack a powerful nutritional punch with a small caloric load. Even cooler? Some of these components can improve blood-flow, prevent oxidation, and improve memory in the short-term. Fiber in these foods also keeps hunger in check while boosting happiness. Fiber feeds a healthy gut microbiome, which is responsible for the majority of serotonin production in the body.
• Prioritize quality protein and fat to avoid feeling hungry. Protein and lipid metabolism take longer than carbohydrate metabolism. Combining healthy proteins and fats like nuts, canned fish, or avocado with your snacks and meals keeps hunger at bay. As a bonus, your brain thrives on the healthy fats found in whole-food fish, grass-fed meat, and vegetables.
• Chow down regularly. This doesn’t mean you necessarily need to increase your daily caloric intake. What it means is that you should remember to eat regularly, rather than skip breakfast and lunch in order to get work done. Trust us, your writing and work will improve with food.
• Choose food products with a handful of ingredients. Generally speaking, fewer ingredients is synonymous with health because it often means fewer preservatives, dyes, sugars, and fillers.

• Stay hydrated. Obvious right? Not necessarily. Your body needs to be hydrated to work correctly, and few people actually consume enough hydrating food and drink. Stick to fresh fruit and vegetables along with water or tea to ensure that you’re getting enough H2O.

Insanely Good-for-You Snack Ideas to Try this Week

While there are a lot of unhealthy options disguised as health food, there are some really amazing food products that make nutrition and busy schedules work together—deliciously. From traditional standards like nuts and fruit to new interesting meal-replacement options, we’ve got some brilliant snack inspiration for you.

1Go nuts.

Nuts and seeds are a traditional staple of healthy snacking that remains one of the smartest snack choices you can make, assuming you select carefully. Raw, low-salt options are loaded with healthy fats, fiber, and minerals that will keep you feeling full and deliver a satisfying crunch.

Beware, however, that not all nuts are “healthy” options. Heavily salted varieties, just like a bag of chips, will mess with your hunger signaling and increase the chance of overeating. Additionally, roasted varieties are often roasted in unhealthy vegetable oils that increase oxidation in the body. Wilderness Poets supplies a large variety of seeds, nuts, and nut butters that are raw, organic, and minimally processed.

2Be “berry” productive.

Try replacing some of your sweeter, lower-vitamin fruits—we’re looking at you apples and bananas—with more berries. These amazing fruits of the forest consistently rank as superfoods, taste delicious, and are easily accessible for most Americans.

For example, if we compare apples to blackberries, the difference is impressive. Just 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of blackberries provides 35 percent of your daily requirement of vitamin C, 25 percent of your daily requirement of vitamin K, and 32 percent of your daily requirement of manganese. In contrast, the same weight of apples provides only 8 percent, 3 percent, and 2 percent, respectively.

Wow.

Different berries have slightly different profiles, but they all pack a similar nutritional punch. Raw berries are best, but dried berries without added sugar can be a healthy addition as well. Sunset Valley Organics, for example, supplies clean, simple dried blueberries—the fruit linked to better brain circulation and improved memory! A note of caution, however: many berries require a lot of pesticides (bugs want vitamins too!). When possible, buy wild berries or wash produce thoroughly to limit pesticide exposure.

3Choose quality protein.

Most of your healthy proteins should be in your meals, simply because it’s usually easier. However, there are some decent protein-rich snack options. Personally, I’m addicted to EPIC’s meat bars and snack strips. The meat bars, something between jerky and sausage, are flavorful and several options are sourced from wild or grass-fed stock. Plus, they’re a wonderful blend of fat and protein that keeps me going no matter what.

If chowing down on animals makes you squeamish, have no fear. Quest Bars are a solid vegetarian option. And they don’t kid around. Their bars have 20+ grams of protein while maintaining a low carbohydrate profile (read no blood-sugar spikes), and come in more than twenty-two flavor options. Though these bars fudge the “fewer-ingredients-is-better” guideline, when eaten in moderation they can really help fuel your work without issue.

4Feel “fat-tastic.”

Fat has gotten a bad rap over the years. The demonization of saturated fat took down healthy fats with it. Luckily, appreciation for fat as a health food is starting to pick up; there are a lot of delicious options for snackers looking for lipids. With nine calories per gram, however, fatty snacks add up quickly. Watch your portions so you’re not OD-ing on any one kind of fat.

As always, the best kind of snacks are whole foods. Foods rich in mono- and poly-unsaturated fats make excellent snacks and include raw nuts, avocado, and olives. If you’re brave enough, reach for a tin of cod liver—rich in omega-3s and vitamin D. Just eat it in a ventilated space; it’s quite fishy. Healthy sources of saturated fats include boiled eggs, some cheeses, and coconut.

If something grab-and-go is more your style, try coconut chips, crunchy moon cheese, or even a bulletproof coffee.

5Dig into “performance enhancers.”

And by that we mean: caffeine . . . and friends.

Caffeine in coffee, tea, and dark chocolate helps boost alertness and focus—as long as you don’t overdo it. If you become jittery, agitated, or distractible after consuming caffeine, try cutting back or trying a coffee alternative.

If you and caffeine don’t play well, there are many other healthy substances that help improve brain function, memory, and alertness. Low-caffeine green tea, ginseng tea and ginko tea, are some of the most preferred.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. Feeding your body and mind for success is as much about choosing the right foods as getting rid of the wrong ones. Excessive sugar combined with low-nutrient density foods steals vitality from your body. When choosing healthy snacks, it’s a good idea to try to replace unhealthy options with healthy ones. If you struggle to make the switch, start with one food or food group and use the guidelines above to decide.

What is your go-to healthy snack?

Not-So-Sweet 16: Early-Morning Chatters vs. Giant Group Chat

The Not-So-Sweet 16 round of March MADness has begun! So far, we’ve started the voting for work chat pet peeves, and these two contenders are both pretty atrocious. Which habit annoys you more? Vote below!

Early-Morning Chatters

These folks are up in the wee small hours of the morning, sending out updates to group chats—either pinging you awake as you catch your last few hours of sleep or inundating your mornings with messages to attend to.

Giant Group Chat

These monstrosities include so many members that the rule book basically gets thrown out the window. With everyone chiming in, navigating the chat for information relevant to you and your work is almost futile.

What’s Your Grammar Level and How Can You Improve?

Test your grammar with our linguist-developed quiz series.

If you’re not sure where to start, try the beginning!

Grammar Skills Test: Starter

Grammar Skills Test: Intermediate

Grammar Skills Test: Master