Formal Letter Writing

La méthode, étape par étape

1. 1

   Lay out the addresses and date

   your address top right · recipient's address left · date below yours

   The conventional layout is what signals a formal letter before a word is read. Exam questions award marks for it, and it costs nothing to get right once the pattern is known.

2. 2

   Choose the salutation

   'Dear Mrs Khan' if you know the name · 'Dear Sir or Madam' if not

   Using the recipient's name where you know it is warmer and more effective. 'Dear Sir or Madam' is the correct fallback and is preferable to guessing at a name or a title.

3. 3

   State your purpose in the first sentence

   'I am writing to complain about…'

   A formal letter is not a story. The reader should know why they have received it before the end of the first sentence, and delaying the purpose reads as evasive rather than as polite.

4. 4

   Keep the register consistent

   no contractions, no slang, no exclamation marks

   Write 'do not' rather than 'don't', and avoid casual phrasing entirely. A single informal sentence in an otherwise formal letter is more noticeable than a consistently informal one, and it undermines the whole piece.

5. 5

   Match the sign-off to the salutation

   named → 'Yours sincerely' · not named → 'Yours faithfully'

   This is the rule most often broken and it is easy to remember by the s: 'Sir or Madam' does not go with 'sincerely'. Both take a capital Y and a lower-case second word.

Sincerely and faithfully are not interchangeable

If the salutation names the recipient — 'Dear Mrs Khan' — the letter closes 'Yours sincerely'. If it does not — 'Dear Sir or Madam' — it closes 'Yours faithfully'. The rule is fixed and it is examined.

The memory aid is that two s-words do not go together: 'Sir' and 'sincerely' cannot both appear. Capitalisation matters too — 'Yours sincerely' takes a capital on the first word only.

• Your address top right, recipient's left
• Named recipient → Yours sincerely
• Dear Sir or Madam → Yours faithfully
• No contractions, slang or exclamation marks
• Purpose stated in the first sentence

Holding the register

Formal register means full forms rather than contractions, precise vocabulary rather than vague, and no exclamation marks. It does not mean using long words for their own sake — 'utilise' is not more formal than 'use', only clumsier.

The most common failure is a letter that starts formally and relaxes halfway through. Consistency matters more than elevation, and a plain, controlled formal letter reads better than one straining for grandeur.

Structuring the middle

Three paragraphs usually suffice. The first states the purpose and the essential facts. The second gives the detail — what happened, when, what was affected. The third states clearly what you want the recipient to do.

That final paragraph is the one students most often omit or soften into vagueness. A complaint that does not say what outcome is being requested leaves the reader with nothing to act on, and exam mark schemes look for it.

How we teach formal letters

We teach the sign-off rule as a single memorable pairing and test it in isolation, because it is a discrete mark that students give away for no reason other than not having been told clearly.

We then focus on the request paragraph. Layout and register are quickly learned; stating plainly what you want without either aggression or vagueness is the part that actually takes practice.