What do I say?

Writing a formal business letter makes me nervous. How picky will the recipient be if I put a comma in the wrong place? Will they notice my run on sentence? Should I put their address above the salutation? What do I say in the salutation? How about the closing? Is it Yours, Sincerely, Always, or just my name? That just the technical part, what about the content, the meaning, the tone of my words?

Preparing for an ENGL 1010 class where the assignment is to write a persuasive Business Letter, I ran across "The AMA handbook of business documents [electronic resource] : guidelines and sample documents that make business writing easy" by K.(Kevin)Wilson, K. [HF5726 ONLINE RESOURCE 2011]. It's an electronic book in our EBSCO (formerly NetLibrary) collection.

The AMA Handbook of Business Documents takes the guesswork out of preparing firstclass written pieces of every type. Packed with dozens of sample documents and practical tips, this handy guide is everything you need to create:
Proposals • Memos • E-mails • Press releases • Collection letters • Speeches • Technical, research and lab reports • Sales letters • Policies and procedures • Warning letters • Announcements • And much more
Suited equally to executives, entrepreneurs, managers, and administrative staff—anyone charged with putting a business’s intentions into words—The AMA Handbook of Business Documents is a versatile, powerful, and indispensable toolbox. [more]

Don't be afraid, there is help! You do need a login and password to use this title off campus. That information is available from your campus librarian.


-kss