What in your opinion is its present value, and what would be your terms for selling? Mr. Peabody would like to place the same in the hands of some responsible real estate agent. I referred him to you, and so he asked me to write for him. Very truly yours, Howard Wood. The above letter is inexact and unbusinesslike. It contains much that is irrelevant to the real subject-matter of the inquiry. Compare it with the following: Mr. A. W. Allen, Little Falls, N. Y., Nov. 29, 1905. Exchange Place Building, Kansas City, Mo. Dear Sir Will you kindly favor me with your opinion of the value of the following improved property located in your city: Lots 6 and 7 in Section 48, each 50 feet front by 100 feet deep, situated at the northeast corner of Pearl and Vine streets and fronting on Pearl Street. The property is owned by Mr. M. O. Peabody of this village. He has expended on it during the last five years about $5000 for paving, sewers, sidewalks, curbing, and shade trees, and he would now like to sell. Kindly indicate in your reply the present condition of the real estate market, also your terms for handling property of this character. An early reply will oblige me. Yours very truly, Howard Wood. What information does this letter contain that is not found in the first example? Is this information necessary for the convenience of the receiver? What unnecessary information does the first example contain that has been omitted in the second? Coherence. One of the qualities most frequently absent from business correspondence is coherence, although it is absolutely indispensable in a good business letter. Words, sentences, and ideas must be so arranged that they hang together. This can best be accomplished by taking care to deal with but one thing at a time, and by so ordering the divisions of each subject as to make your letter move forward by perfectly apparent and rational degrees. Never take up a matter of which you have an incomplete conception, only to be forced to return to it again, after having treated of other issues. Nothing can be more annoying than to have to read a letter three or four times in order to disentangle and rearrange various subjects which the writer has not properly fitted together. Method. The best kind of coherence results from method. If words and facts are arranged into sentences and paragraphs with the clearly defined purpose of methodically exhausting each subject in turn, coherence will necessarily result. Method implies the study of subordination and classification, with the end in view of making all correlated data easy of access and understanding. If you jumble your ideas together without proper sequence, no matter how precise and clear your wording of each individually may be, the general effect of your letter will be lost. You will not make your whole case clear, because your thoughts have not been joined together in a progressive, logical sequence. Method is nowhere more effective, admirable, or necessary than in business letter writing. Study the following example of an incoherent letter: 140 Greene St., New York, C. A. Galway, Esq., Dear Sir, I succeeded to-day in selling your shipment of Ginseng at $8.00 per pound, and inclose herewith $98.00. Eight dollars is the highest offer I received and they were not anxious to take it at that price. Chinese exporters will not handle the cultivated root at all. They say that it will be lower a month from now than it is at present. The Chinese claim that the cultivated root is not as good as the wild root, and refuse to take it at any price. The whole shipment weighed twenty-four and seven tenths pounds, amounting to $197.60. I am sending you your note, given January 22, 1906, which amounts with interest to $86.60; a receipt for thirteen dollars; my certified check for $98.00. The weight is a little short of what you made it, but I think their weight is correct. Please acknowledge receipt and oblige, Very truly yours, Oliver Vincent. How many topics does the writer deal with in the above letter? What are they? Point out the incoherence in the writer's arrangement and method, and compare his treatment with the following: 140 Greene St., New York, C. A. Galway, Esq., Dear Sir: Nov. 1, 1907. In accordance with your instructions, I have sold Your note dated Jan. 22, 1906, $82.75 My certified check for. My receipt for 98.00 $197.60 13.00 197.60 I have indorsed upon your note for $100.00, dated It was with difficulty that I secured $8.00 per on accurate grocers' scales and made it just 24 I trust you will find this accounting satisfactory. Very truly yours, Oliver Vincent. Courtesy is one of the most essential qualities of a good letter. The writer should maintain his own dignity by properly respecting the dignity of others. Rudeness, curtness, sarcasm, are even more inexcusable in writing than they are in conversation. The written page remains when the spoken word is forgotten. No amount of stress is too great to emphasize the fact that one should never write a letter upon a momentary impulse, without dispassionately considering the issues at stake. Calmness is one of the most noticeable attributes of a gentleman. Courtesy is manly without being abrupt, polished without being effusive. Letters of complaint especially call for calm and courteous treatment. John Wanamaker, 312 Mead Avenue, Passaic, N. J., Dec. 20, 1909. New York. Dear Sir: On Saturday last I bought at your store four yards of black crepe de Chine. The goods have not been delivered, and the delay has caused me great inconvenience. This is not the first time I have been annoyed by delay in your deliveries. My November bill contained an error amounting to five dollars and forty cents in your favor. I sent the bill back for correction. To-day I received a "please remit" for the amount of the original bill. Must I be continually annoyed by blunders of this character ? Yours truly, (Miss) L. E. Sterns. A curt, sharp letter, such as the above, might easily provoke a like reply. Do you find anything in the following letter which would tend to give offense to a valuable customer? Does it exemplify courtesy and at the same time maintain the writer's dignity? New York, Dec. 21, 1909. Miss L. E. Sterns, 312 Mead Ave., Passaic, N. J. Dear Madam:- We beg to inform you in reply to your letter of the 20th instant that the crepe de Chine has been sent by special delivery. Upon investigation we found that the delay in delivery was caused by a mistake on the part of our saleswoman in taking your address. Our billing clerk explains that the error of $5.40 in your November bill was due to the fact that the credit memorandum for the Oak Rocker, which you had purchased for the above amount and which you returned on November 28, did not reach our counting room until after the bills for that month had been made out. Proper evidence of this returned purchase would have appeared in our statement of your December account, but we inclose herewith your November bill revised in conformity to your wishes. Please accept our thanks for advising us of the mistakes above referred to. We regret the inconvenience you have suffered, and we trust there will be in the future no recurrence of similar errors. Very truly yours, John Wanamaker. Per M. M. Baker. The following, taken (with the exception of the names) from the actual correspondence of a large shoe manufacturing concern, illustrates the ill-advised letter written under the stress of annoying circumstances. |