Letter and Report Writing Skills – Is your letter ready to be sent?

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Our letter writing course will allow delegates to gain useful letter writing tools, tips and techniques and also includes constructive letter and report templates. Delegates who have trained with us have effectively applied the skills gained from this course to their everyday workplace correspondence. This productive course will also demonstrate the particulars of writing effective emails, whilst improving punctuation and grammar.

All organisations need to convey a professional image in every way to stay ahead of the competition. It is paramount that all pieces of written documentation are faultless. As your professional reputation can be enhanced or ruined by your correspondence, it is essential that the style, content and message is concise, correct and appropriate.

HAVE YOU GOT IT ‘WRITE’?

After all the work that has gone into drafting a letter, there comes the moment when the text is ready to be finalised. Ideally, allow some time between the earlier steps and this one; you will see the text with fresh eyes and notice errors and omissions more easily. It will also give you the opportunity to remove any comments or words you might later regret.

Before you post it there are some key things to check:

  • Most importantly does the letter meet its objectives? Is the letter clear and does the content flow logically, leading the reader naturally to the desired end result?
  • Have you used language appropriate for the reader and is the letter grammatically correct and well punctuated?
  • Be honest with yourself. Does the letter have the impact you wanted and will someone want to read it?

THE FOUR P’s CHECKLIST

If this all seems too much to remember, you may prefer to have a checklist for the key points. Remember to think about the four P’s.

PERSONAL

Make sure your reader feels important by:

  • Using their full and correct title, initials and address
  • Being specific and not generalised
  • Writing in a friendly tone, whenever possible or appropriate
  • Using plain English
  • Writing as one adult to another; not patronising or defensive
  • Writing as though you are talking. Use a conversational style with short familiar words.

PRODUCTIVE

Write an effective letter which:

  • Addresses all the relevant points or issues
  • Flows logically through a series of related topics or concepts
  • Meets organisation layout standards
  • Is grammatically correct and properly punctuated
  • Is complete, including all other relevant documents or materials
  • Clearly explains the benefits to the reader of doing as you ask

POSITIVE

Help the reader to achieve your objective by:

  • Using positive and active words
  • Concentrating on what you can do, rather than what you can’t do
  • Being neither misleading, nor difficult to read
  • Focusing on the future and, if you are apologising for an error, avoiding apportioning the blame.
  • Maintaining the reader’s self esteem, especially if you are correcting a misunderstanding
  • Telling the reader what they need to do next and by when?

PROFESSIONAL

Project a Professional image by:

  • Making the letter look attractive and interesting to read
  • Using white space to avoid a lot of closely compacted text
  • Writing sentences which have 15-20 words on average
  • Avoid waffle
  • Using organisation or industry jargon carefully
  • Ensuring the signature on your letter agrees with the signature block
  • Itemising key points for easy reference, that is, use bullet points

As a further check, assess your letter against the five C’s

CLEAR

Is your letter easy to read? Use jargon or abbreviations only if you know the reader will understand them.

CONCISE

Is your letter short enough to be interesting, whilst still complete?

COMPLETE

Have you answered all the questions? Will the reader have all the relevant information they need to understand the issues? Have you included any items or additional documents?

CORRECT

Are the facts correct, and have you clearly differentiated between fact and opinion?

COURTEOUS

Your letter should be polite, courteous and factual no matter how tense or difficult the situation.

Remember the 90:90 rule, that you create 90% of your lasting impression in the first 90 seconds. Take care when addressing your envelope and folding your letter; don’t lose the benefit of good stationary and excellent drafting through careless origami! Only when you are completely satisfied should you post the letter.

Letter and Report writing course

Our letter and report writing course is tailored to the needs of delegates who already retain business writing skills and those who would like to gain further knowledge on:

  • how to write a good report
  • how to write effective letters
  • how to write professionally
  • how to write confidently
  • how to write a standard letter
  • how to write a formal report
  • how to write a complaint letter

Course Dates

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Who will benefit from the course?

What are the best ways to produce effective letters and reports? This course is designed to lead to practical skills to enable delegates to be both competent and confident in their written communication. Our courses allow all staff to benefit from enhanced writing skills. The types of delegate we have trained previously are:

  • Directors and senior managers
  • Sales and fundraising staff
  • Local government employees
  • Managers, department heads, team leaders and supervisors
  • Technical and academic team members
  • Customer service staff

In-Company Courses

Total Success have developed a series of in-house training modules. These are designed so that an organisation can pick the training which is more applicable to its own needs and budget. Please call us to discuss your specific requirements

Total Success Training Packs

Why use a total success training pack

If you are looking to run your own training course but lack the materials and the time to develop a fully functional training seminar we produce a range of training materials and packs which will suit your requirements exactly. All of our packs and been written by our own training experts and we can guarantee that the training pack will satisfy your course requirements. Each pack will contain a full set of PowerPoint training slides, trainer’s notes, a course manual, and a full set of handouts and activities.

We have been running our courses since 1995 and have trained 1000’s of people via open courses and in-company seminars. We guarantee that the course you buy is the one we train. All courses are trainer and trainee friendly so you’ll be up and running quickly (depending on your training experience).

We know how difficult it is to choose amongst the many training materials available on line, that’s why we have 3 packages that will suit you needs. With our gold, silver and bronze packages you can choose the training format that’s right for you and your budget. Call us 0044 (0)208 269 1177 to discuss your requirements or email us info@totalsuccess.co.uk

Related information

Total success training also produced a number of newsletter webpages that carry great information on all our training topics.  Below you will find a selection of related newsletter pages. You can click on any of the links and they will give you stacks of really interesting information relating to this subject t. If you like the content of these pages you can subscribe to our newsletter page and we will send you a newsletter every month. we update our pages very regularly so will always be more great information each time you log onto our site.