Errors commonly committed in a business letter

Errors to Avoid in a Business Letter
In the course of your day-to-day work, you need to write dozens of business letters, to your colleagues, clients, consultants, or vendors. Think what would happen if you were to make a critical error in your communication that will eventually affect your firm financially.

Using the South University Online Library research and read articles that describe the business costs resulting from unclear instructions. Based on your research and readings, respond to the following question

1. What are the kinds of errors that are commonly committed in a business letter

2. What could be the results of such errors? Provide at least three examples

3.How would you avoid such errors in the future? Explain in detail

4. What would you include in a best practices document for writing a business letter? Explain the dos and don'ts.

BC; Week One-Discussion One

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Marjorie Cleveland posted Dec 2, 2020 8:16 PM

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Typically, many people work in business offices around the world every day. Comparatively, different roles are available that one can occupy as a worker in a business office. Accordingly, positions from the President of a company to the person who delivers the inter-office mail. Within these roles, most have to deal with the task of sending correspondence. Commonly, these correspondences are business letters. In the course of the development of said correspondence, errors can undermine the quality of the missive and may depend upon how egregious the errors can lose clients for companies.

Firstly, one is aware of the most common errors in business letter writing producing clean business letters will be an easy task. According to Michelle Mire, the 13th of June,2019, on Score's website (Miller, Five Business Writing Mistakes to Avoid, 2019), four of the most common mistakes and one of my own including ways of avoidance are: The purpose of the letter is not stated in the beginning. One can avoid this by stating why the letter is being sent within the first couple of sentences. Errors in spelling. Avoidance of this is easily remedied by spellchecking the document or using the dictionary. Additionally, taking your time may lessen spelling errors. Run-on-sentences. Lengthy sentences can be confusing to the reader and misconstrue the purpose of the communication. Accordingly, just as getting to the point as to reason correspondence was sent, the body of the letter should have sentences that are clear and concise, thereby avoiding long sentences. Also, not using connector words, such as, and, but and or can make letters more concise. Usage of the apostrophe, ('), incorrectly. Commonly, many have errored in knowing when a plural form of a word is needed or a possessive form. The ability to differentiate between dogs and dog's can be instrumental when writing letters. These mistakes can be remedied by using spellcheck, programs like Grammarly, or beefing up your English language skills. Using shorten language as one uses in texting. Usage of terms like LOL, K, and other shortened forms of words will kill a business letter. It is very unprofessional to display immature aspects that will send the wrong message to the sender. Avoiding using that language when at work can remedy this. Conversely, sending business letters with these errors can be damaging to the sender and the company in many ways. According to the blog, info@hurleywrite.com (Write, What is the purpose of improving your business writing from a workforce perspective?, 2020), three of these ways usually has damaging effects for business entities: Lowering of employee morale affecting performance. This occurs when there is misinformation that can be due to incorrect usage of business letter etiquette. Leading to a lack of respect for the sender who may be in a supervisory position resulting in employee work ethics lowering such as more tardiness and absenteeism., Thereby, many company's overall outputs will be adversely affected. An erroneous view of a brand. Conversely, social media and its input onto society have brought forth the common knowledge and ability to brand, make a company identifiable by logo or name. In so much as this is true, atrocious business correspondence can weaken the consumer view of a brand causing diminishing profits. Loss of clientele. Illustratively, if a business habitually sent correspondence with typos and improper English language usage, the receiver may begin to waiver in confidence that the senders' company is capable of doing stellar business resulting in clientele seeking others to provide the same service losing revenue for the company of sender. Summarily, pros and cons are plentiful when communicating within business settings. Given the opportunity to create a "best practices" document outlining a few, the inclusion of spell check being a company policy would be first. Thereby, eliminating many of the common errors of English language usage bringing employees who send interoffice messaging, primarily, to that level of writing business correspondence. Secondly, encouragement of employees to allow enough time for business letters to be reviewed as to eliminate errors before such is sent. This can be by another co-worker or after you come back to it as to look at letter with fresh eyes. Thirdly, an admonishment to remember not to revert to text language, always use proper English standards of sentence structuring such as not using acronyms, i.e., LOL, etcetera. Reminders to be conscious of the image and brand of the company explaining that improper usage of possessive nouns and plural forms can be eliminated with spell check. Additionally, including information relating to not using connector words such as and, or and but causes run-on sentences which may lose the receivers' interest affect the content of the letter. Lastly, stating for the sender to come to the point early within the body of the letter would be on the document to emphasize that this can lose revenue for the company and/or loss of confidence from clientele.

In conclusion, writing business correspondence can have many rules of etiquette to be professional, whether inter-office or sent out of any company to other businesses or clientele. Therefore, to be a competent writer of such types of letters, knowing some basic do's and don'ts can be beneficial to the employee and the company.

ERRORS TO AVOID WHILE WRITING A BUSINESS LETTER- Kiera Jarrett
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Kiera Jarrett posted Dec 2, 2020 3:23 PM

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Hello All-

I had a little difficulty with this, but I am hoping to get a few pointers from you all in this discussion.

Some of the errors that I found that are committed in writing a business letter are:

· Using acronyms, jargon, or slang.

· Not proofreading or not spellchecking work ( having grammatical errors, incorrect use of punctuation, or improper use of articles)

· Being overly casual ( not recognizing passive and active voices)

What could be the result in such errors?

Your intended audience will not take you seriously. For instance; if you are too casual during an important email or letter, you audience could take that as lazy or simply nonchalant (Selsa, 2013).

· EX: Not using the proper greeting or salutation. You should always start your letter off with " Dear Ms. or Mr.", Hello All. If you do not use a salutation, it will seem as though you are starting off in the middle of a conversation.

· EX: " I am writing this letter to inform you about a vehicle that we have not received". Without starting with a greeting, it feels as if we are just in a casual conversation.

The use of shorthand or jargon could make your audience feel like you are lazy and feel stupid (Selsa, 2013).

· EX: "Hey HRU, just needing to spk to u abt sum thingz that have come up." I know that we have become a shorthand society, but when writing a business letter it looks lazy.

How would you avoid such errors?

In order to avoid all of these errors, I would have some type of plan to catch the errors. Prior to sending a business letter or email, I would proofread everything. Proofreading is essential to making sure that your letter or email will be successful with the intended audience. Right now in my current professional life, I proofread everything. Spellcheck is also another tool that is helpful in sending a successful letter. It also never hurts to have someone else look over your letter or email. I have learned in my on profession that it helps to have "another set of eyes".

What would you include in a best practices document for writing a business letter?

· Salutation or greeting

· Make sure my messages are clear and concise

· Check all grammatical errors

· Use a readable font

· Use an active voice

· Close out my letter respectfully

Citations:

http://sarikusumaningrum.blogspot.com/2013/04/error-in-business-writing.html

Selsa; Teaching and Thinking April 30, 2013