This book discusses the most widespread and acceptable approaches to writing business letters in a readily understandable fashion, exploring rules and conventions based on actual contemporary practices. Emphasis is placed on types of business letters across languages, patterns of thinking, cross-cultural communication, the effect of style, tone and the mechanics of writing, and grammar. This book is written for all kinds of readers, particularly students and teachers involved in writing business letters for translation purposes, in addition to executives, small business owners, secretaries, and salespersons who are involved in cross-cultural communication. Because of its multifaceted nature, this book serves not only as a practical and comprehensive guide to business correspondence, but also as a tool that helps professionals write business letters and understand their counterparts within the contexts of other languages. It provides various examples from Arabic, English and French, covering a wide range of situations and offers practical advice on wording, content, style, and structure. A list of business terms and their definitions is included at the end of this book to help readers understand their meaning and implications across cultures.

Though the fundamentals of letter writing have remained the same, the way we communicate in business is constantly evolving. With the understanding that consistently professional correspondence is essential to success in any industry, The AMA Handbook of Business Letters offers readers a refresher course in letter-writing basics--including focusing the message, establishing an appropriate tone, and getting your readers’ attention. You’ll also receive tips that apply to all written forms of communication on things like salutations, subject lines, signatures, and formatting. Jeffrey Seglin, communications director and professor of Harvard University’s graduate and professional school, and author Edward Coleman provide over 370 customizable model letters, divided into categories reflecting various aspects of business such as sales, marketing, public relations, customer service, human resources, credit and collection, purchasing, permissions, and confirmations.With helpful appendices listing common mistakes in grammar, word usage, and punctuation, the latest version of this adaptable book--extensively updated with more than 25 percent new material--will assist professionals through every conceivable business correspondence with confidence.

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Once nearly as ubiquitous as dictionaries and cookbooks are today, letter-writing manuals and their predecessors served to instruct individuals not only on the art of letter composition but also, in effect, on personal conduct. Poster and Mitchell contend that the study of letter-writing theory, which bridges rhetorical theory and grammatical studies, represents an emerging discipline in need of definition. In this volume, they gather the contributions of eleven experts to sketch the contours of epistolary theory and collect the historic and bibliographic materials - from Isocrates to email - that form the basis for its study.