Parts of a Business Letter
Letterhead: Often companies have paper stock that has the companies’ address and
branding information and logo that all correspondence is printed on.
Date: This should always be the day the letter was typed unless otherwise requested.
Inside address: This is the address to whom you will send the letter.
Salutation/Greeting: This is usually a formal greeting and a title should be included,
such as Mr., Ms., Dr., etc. (e.g. Dear Mr. Smith, or Dear Ms. Johnson). First names are
usually not used with written correspondence as written letters are considered “formal”
documents.
Body of the letter: This is the letter itself. There is no indenting of the first line of each
paragraph. Spacing is only used between each paragraph. Allow the computer to wrap
the text according to the margin settings. This is not a typewriter, so you do not have to
hit ENTER at the end of each line. The computer does that automatically.
Complimentary closing: Most often this is Sincerely, but Best Regards is sometimes
used.
Name of person and title: This is the name of the person responsible for the content of
the letter and that person’s job title. It is typed out below the signature, because often a
signature cannot be read.
Typist’s initials: This is the person responsible for typing and formatting the letter, not
for the content of what the letter says.
Enclosure and/or cc: If other documents are going to be included in the envelope with
the letter, then the word Enclosure or Enclosures (if there is more than one) needs to be
included after the typist’s initials to inform the reader to look for those documents. If the
letter is also being copied to another person, a cc: would be included under the word
Enclosure. You should include the names of any people who will receive the copy after
the cc, such as cc: Joan Brackletter.
It would look like this:
Enclosure
cc: Joan Brackletter, Pradeep Junkta
Saylor URL: www.saylor.org/prdv003 Subunit 2.1
The Saylor Foundation
Saylor.org
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