An employee in any field sooner or later faces the problem of writing a business letter. The main question is how to start and how to finish? Many sites offer basic rules and examples, paying little attention to the final part of the documents.

The letter must be perfect in every way. Even the slightest non-compliance with the rules can harm your authority or the prestige of the company.

In a brief form, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the main rules of business letters and will dwell in more detail on the final part of an official letter.

You will need:

The main rules of business letters

1. When writing a letter, remember that you are not expressing your own opinion, but are speaking on behalf of a legal entity (institution, organization or enterprise).
2. It is your responsibility to be clear about the results you want to achieve with this letter and to make effective use of all the text's features.
3. Clearly define the plan of presentation, highlighting the information in the introduction, main part or ending.
4. In the introduction, after the address, we prepare the addressee for perception. This may be a summary of the events that led to the emergence of the document. The main part contains a statement of the essence of the problem with the necessary argumentation (explanation, digital calculations, links to legislative acts).

A more effective and easy-to-understand text, in which, first, the proposal, request or demand is stated, then the argumentation, and there is no introductory part at all.

Part of the ending - applications

Certain documents have appendices that complement, clarify, or detail specific issues. They must be noted at the end of the letter, departing a few lines from the last paragraph.

Application design methods:

1) Applications mentioned in the text, then a note about this is drawn up as follows:

Appendix: 5 pages, 3 copies.

2) Applications not listed in the text must be listed, making sure to indicate the title, number of pages in each application and number of copies.

Appendix: “Certificate of assessment of the cost of unfinished construction”, 2 pages, 3 copies.

3) Sometimes there are several applications. Then they are listed by name and numbered. If there are a large number of applications, a list of them is compiled separately, and in the letter after the text the following is noted:

Appendix: according to the list on ... page.

Attach copies of documents to the letter in the order in which they were numbered in the attachment.

The application is usually signed by the heads of structural divisions. In cases where applications are bound, there is no need to indicate the number of pages.

Politeness and correctness are the basis of the ending

There are various options for constructing the ending. It depends on what was said in the letter.

The most commonly used completion examples:

1) Repeat the gratitude given at the beginning or simply thank you for your help:

Thank you again...

Let me thank you again...

We would like to once again express our sincere gratitude...

Thanks for the help …

2) Express hopes:

We hope that the agreement will be mutually beneficial...

We hope that our offer will interest you...

We look forward to close and mutually beneficial cooperation...

I hope that soon I will be able to meet you in person...

I hope to receive your response soon...

3) Reassurance of the addressee (usually has a psychologically positive effect on the addressee):

We assure you that you can fully count on our support...

We will be glad to cooperate with you...

I would be glad to cooperate with you and look forward to your response...

4) Request:

Please read the materials carefully and respond...

We ask you to urgently inform...

We ask you to take immediate action to improve the situation...

Please call me at any time convenient for you...

5) Repeating the already expressed apology for the inconvenience:

Once again I apologize for the inconvenience caused...

We sincerely apologize for this forced delay in payment...

Parting

1) In official correspondence you can say goodbye in different ways:

Sincerely…

With respect and best wishes...

With sincere respect to you...

We wish you success.

2) If you know the addressee well or successfully cooperate with him, then you can end the letter with friendly phrases (not familiar):

Yours sincerely…

Best wishes…

With gratitude and best wishes.

You can finish the document without using these structures!

English features of ending letters

1. Usually they end an official letter like this: Sincerely Yours (Sincerely yours) or simply Yours(Yours) and a signature, indicating your last name and position under it.
2. To avoid putting your partner in a difficult position or forcing them to make assumptions about your gender, take the trouble to write your name in full, that is, not P.R. Dovzhenko, but Pavel Dovzhenko.

Signature

Officials sign documents within their competence.

The “signature” attribute consists of the job title, initials and surname of the person who signed the document.

Director of the Mramor plant (signature) A.B. Koval

Documents concluded in institutions operating on the principle of unity of command are signed by one official (manager, deputy or employee entrusted with this).

Documents of collegial bodies (protocols, decisions) are affixed with two signatures (the head and the secretary). The order is signed by the manager.

Two or more signatures are placed on documents for the contents of which several people are responsible:

• Monetary and financial documents are signed by the head of the institution and the chief accountant;
• agreements are signed by representatives of the contracting parties.

The signatures of several persons on documents are placed one below the other in a sequence corresponding to the service hierarchy.

Director (signature) S.P. Antonyuk

Chief accountant (signature) V.T.Dudko

If a document is signed by several persons occupying the same position, their signatures must be placed at the same level.

Director of the Luch plant Director of the Svet plant

(signature) V.R. Sakhno (signature) L.P. Kotov

The signature begins with the initials (placed before the surname), followed by the surname. There is no need to put the decryption of the signature in brackets!

Seal

To secure legal force, some documents are stamped with a seal: contracts, decrees, conclusions, etc. The stamp must include part of the job title and personal signature.

date

The date is placed below the signature on the left.

An official letter is dated on the day it was signed or approved by the head of the institution.

There is a generally accepted dating order:

1. Date elements are written on one line using three pairs of Arabic numerals in the order of day, month, year;
2. if the serial number of the day or month is the number of the first ten (from 1 to 9), then a zero is placed in front of it: 03.01.15 .
3. Word year, reduction G. they don't put it.

• When finished, check the letter for grammatical errors and make sure there is nothing superfluous.
• Give the letter to a colleague or, if possible, a manager to read. An outside perspective will help identify shortcomings that might otherwise be overlooked.
• Don't forget to include your phone/email address. This is often necessary to quickly resolve the problem specified in the letter.
• In addition to the general universal requirements and design rules, it must be taken into account that each type of document has its own design features.

Remember that not all documents have a complete list of the details listed above, but only a certain set of those that provide the legal force and completeness of this particular type of document.

Good luck with your transactions and the desired answers!

Frequently asked questions and answers

What's nice to write at the end of a business proposal?

Do not use words and phrases at the final stage that can be considered manipulation (“we hope for mutually beneficial cooperation”, “thank you in advance for your answer”, “we will be waiting for your response letter”, etc.).

Should you write “best wishes” or “with respect” at the end of the letter?

Definitely, “with respect”, you need to adhere to a business style of communication.

What do they usually write at the end of a letter if they ask for a quick response?

Nothing like this is written in a business letter.

Should you write “with regards” or “best wishes” in your email signature?

"Sincerely".

How to replace the signature "with respect"?

"With all due respect", "With respect."

How to end a presentation letter?

Thank you for your attention.

How else can you write “I would like to notify”?

“I would like to inform”, “notify”, “inform”, “announce”, “bring to the attention of”.

Is the phrase: “I’ll end my report with words” correct?

When do we write too impressively, and when is our last phrase overly and inappropriately formal? The author of the methodology for teaching business English, Natalya Tokar, talks specifically for Marie Claire about how the hierarchy of signatures actually works.

When I was studying for a master's degree in Germany, I asked myself the same question - how to correctly end a letter in German when I write an application to the rector, send a resume to an employer, or ask unfamiliar classmates what they were asked about film theory. I could do all this in English (so it seemed to me), and German was a new language in which I spoke much better than I wrote. Every time Google “saved” me, and then it turned out that it only spoiled my relationships with people. I didn't understand how the signature hierarchy worked. When do I write too impressively, and when is my last sentence in a letter overly and inappropriately formal? I know that many people who communicate with clients, partners and investors in English also do not understand this hierarchy. What I mean? Let's look at an example of how to start letters.

Question of name

A standard mistake is to translate a phrase in Russian right down to the comma. For example: “Hello, Mr. Peter!” or “Hello, Peter!” English does not use a comma before addresses, and you rarely see an exclamation point at the end of a greeting, unless a bosom friend writes to you in the style of “Hey you!” or “Hey Mike!”

A standard address for business correspondence begins with “Dear” and ends with a comma. Possible options: “Dear Mr. Jones,” “Dear James,” or “Dear friends,” if you are addressing subscribers, colleagues, or another group of people. “Dear Sir/Madam,” is recommended if there is no way to find out the name of the person who can help you. If there is such an opportunity, but you don’t take advantage of it, your letter will most likely end up in the trash. If you're writing a cover letter for your resume and don't know the name of the HR person who will be reading it, take the trouble to find out (Google usually knows and is willing to help). If you are sending out VIP invitations to a conference, especially don’t leave the word after “Dear” impersonal. People like to be called by name, and this is a generally accepted norm, reflecting a polite, attentive attitude towards a person.

From “friendly hugs” to the cold pool of “contacts”

At this point I am usually asked the question: What name should we call them? "Mister" or maybe just "John"? "Miss" or "Mrs"? In short, there are two rules:

1. When addressing women, always write Ms (miss) to avoid even a hint of conflict or misunderstanding. This appeal is acceptable for women of any age and any marital status.
2. Always address the person as they present themselves. If he introduces himself as John, you can text him “Dear John.” If he introduced himself as John Smith, there is no need to shorten the distance ahead of time and omit the word “Mister”. Start your letter to him with the words “Dear Mr. Smith.” The same rule applies in reverse. If in the first letter you greeted in the style of “Dear John”, and then suddenly decided that it was in vain that you simply addressed him by name (you need to be more polite with the head of the representative office throughout Eastern Europe), and next time you write to him “Dear Mr. Smith,” you suddenly indicate the distance. Sometimes this looks comical, and sometimes it can cause misunderstandings. We usually distance ourselves from people we don't particularly want to deal with or who have exceeded our trust.

In Russian it would look something like this. First you write: “Hello, Vasya!”, He answers you in a friendly tone and signs: “I invite you to lunch! Vasya". And you begin your next letter to Vasya with the words: “Dear Vasily Olegovich!” What would you think if you were Vasya? Most likely, Vasya will decide that he did or wrote something wrong, since he was suddenly asked to leave the zone of “friendly hugs” and was again sent to the cold pool of “contacts”. John will think the same thing. Therefore, if you work with foreigners, pay attention to how people introduce themselves when you meet them and what signatures they put on their letters.

Simply the best

Now about the signatures. There are many options, and they all mean something. What, for example, does the word “best” mean? In the same Master’s program we had a professor from the USA who always ended her emails like this: “best, Susan.” At that time, for me, this was a completely new rule of etiquette in English, which, as it seemed to me, I knew very well.

It turns out that this is the safest way to end business letters. The hue hierarchy looks like this:

“I wish you all the best, Susan”, “All the best, Susan” and “Best, Susan”

The first option is the most official. Gradually you move towards the third option. If, when discussing who will present the project and how tomorrow, you have already exchanged letters with each other 25 times, it is stupid to write “I wish you all the best” every time. Even “best” will be redundant. In recent issues, Bloomberg wrote that today people treat emails more like text messages, especially if the correspondence occurs in real time. That is, you immediately respond to resolve some issue. It is quite acceptable to leave such letters without a greeting and without a polite farewell.

Especially with the rise in popularity of services like Slack, emails are becoming more and more like text messages: people don't say hello or goodbye, they get straight to the point. However, when we write a letter to a potential client, partner or employer, the rules of etiquette still apply. It is still impolite not to say hello or goodbye to the person you are writing to for the first (and even second) time.

Best or warmest regards

The most favorite option for farewell in a letter in the Russian-speaking space is “best regards”. It all starts with him, especially if it is a cold letter and you have never met the recipient in your life. This option means that you are polite but keep your distance. It is impersonal and does not express any attitude towards the interlocutor. Later, people switch to “kind regards,” thereby indicating that there is more trust in the relationship. “Warm regards” or “warmest regards” may be too warm a farewell if you are discussing equipment supply options. Most often, people quickly switch to just “regards” and leave it for all occasions. The same Bloomberg writes that “regards” and “best” are the two most neutral and therefore most popular ways to end letters.

What about the rest? Is "Sincerely" a truly "sincere" or an overly formal way of saying "goodbye"? Is “Cheers” appropriate when we share photos from a corporate event or is this how we can write to a client? In any case, your writing style reflects your attitude towards the interlocutor. Moreover, with the help of different linguistic units, a variety of relationships between people can be established or consolidated. I will share with you conclusions from real practice of communicating with foreign customers, investors and managers. You can also check with publications such as Inc., Business Insider, Bloomberg, or contact Will Schwalbe, co-author of the best-selling book SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better. They make very similar recommendations.

So, let's look at each option separately.

"Yours Faithfully"– probably the most outdated and most official version. Expresses deep respect for the interlocutor. The phrase is quite acceptable in the countries of the Near and Middle East, but is rare in Western culture and is used only if you begin the letter with the words “Dear Sir.”

"Yours sincerely" or "Sincerely"– this is a suitable option if you need to be especially polite, but nothing more. There is no “warmth” or “sincerity” here. This is how the letter ends from a lawyer who will still charge you an outrageous bill, or a person with whom you have disagreements in business, but it makes sense to continue to cooperate and maintain a professional distance. This is how you can and should end your cover letter to a potential employer. This is how they upload a letter that began with an address by name (“Dear John” / “Dear Mr. Jones”).

One caveat: "Yours sincerely" can really reflect your reverent and sincere attitude towards a person if you are writing a letter to a relative, family member or very close friend. But since this column is dedicated to business communication, I will focus on what can be useful to you in the office tomorrow.

"Best"– the safest and most popular option in business correspondence between native English speakers. When in doubt, type those four letters, a comma, and your name.

"Thanks"- also a safe, but boring option. People write “thank you” everywhere, even when they don’t really say thank you for anything, so use it when you really want to say “thank you.” Add an exclamation point – “Thanks!” to show that you did not write this word automatically.

"Many thanks"- this is a good option if the person helped you or promised to help you, and you sincerely want to express gratitude. At other times, he seems formulaic and insincere.

TTYL, TAFN, etc. You shouldn’t write this way, no matter how much you might want to show that you know these abbreviations. TTYL (“talk to you later”) or TAFN (“that"s all for now”). Such options are unprofessional and may confuse your interlocutor who does not know them or is not used to this style of communication (Outlook is still not a messenger) .

"Looking forward". This phrase makes sense to use if you really intend to see the person soon, meet on Skype, or discuss a project after making changes over the phone. In other cases, it is better not to use it.

“Speak with you soon”/ “Talk soon”– the first option is more formal, the second is simpler. They should be used when you actually intend to talk to this person soon. Otherwise, it is insincere and will not improve your relationship with the interlocutor.

"More soon"- this is what they write when they have not provided all the information in a letter and promise to write a second one - with additions and answers to other questions. If you are not going to do this, it is better to try to write everything at once than to be known as a person who says and does not do. Promise little, deliver much.

"XX"- this option should be used with caution and it is better not to initiate it yourself. I don't use it at all in business correspondence. There are a number of experts who agree with me. However, there is also an opinion that in some situations this signature is appropriate. For example, "Alisa X" is an option for friendly but still professional notes or letters if those "friendships" have already been formed. If not, don't push your luck and don't draw two X's first. It means "Kisses."

"XOXO"- this option is completely unacceptable and means “kisses and hugs.” Save it for close friends and those you want to flirt with.

"Cheers"- an option that signals to an American that you are most likely from England or Australia, or are pretending to be related to these countries. In the USA, such a signature is used extremely rarely. Experts recommend asking yourself, “Would you say this word out loud to another person's face?” and if not, don't use it as a signature.

["Your Name"]– if you end the letter with just your name, this is a rather “cold” and “harsh” way to say goodbye. It's still worth adding something before you remind the person what your name is, and thus demonstrate how you feel about your cooperation - current or potential.

First Initial (e.g. “A”)- some people do not write their full name in their signature, but only one letter. If you remember, at the beginning of the article I clarified that the way you sign letters determines how you will be addressed. If a person puts one letter “W” at the end, it’s difficult to say what it means. How to contact him? Will or William? Or Wolfgang? I had a funny experience with Airbnb. I booked an apartment, and the owner signed his letters with one letter - “E”. It was very awkward for me to start every next letter with the words “Hello E”, but I had no other options. When we met, it turned out that she was a Japanese girl, and her name really was “I.” In Japanese, this name is depicted in hieroglyphs, but the girl prefers not to make life difficult for people - in English she writes her name in one letter and asks to be addressed that way.

Communication is one of the basic human needs, along with sleep and food. Modern people have several accessible and effective ways to talk with friends and relatives, colleagues and business partners. These include face-to-face communication, cellular communications and the Internet.

The last two methods appeared relatively recently. For a long time, it was possible to communicate at a distance only through messages. They were written by hand and sent by mail. This has survived to this day. However, handwritten ones have been replaced by emails.

Let's give a definition

The word "letter" has several meanings.

Firstly, it is a system of written signs, which is necessary for recording oral speech.

Example: Scientists have deciphered an ancient letter

Secondly, this is the appearance of informational text printed on paper.

Example: The students asked their teacher how to finish a letter in accordance with the norms accepted in the Russian language.

Thirdly, handwritten or electronic text that contains information intended for the addressee.

Example: A letter from home with important news from his father was received a week after it was sent.

And how to start it? All people ask themselves these questions, regardless of what kind of message they are writing: electronic or handwritten. In this article we have to answer the first of them.

Types of letters

Before we talk about how best to finish a letter, it’s worth understanding its types. This determines the overall tone and expressions used. So, the messages could be:

• business;
• personal;
• congratulatory.

It is customary to call this type of documentation that serves as a means of exchanging information between different organizations and institutions. It may also be called “official correspondence”. Some types of letters that fall into this category require a response (for example, petitions, appeals, requests), others do not (for example, warnings, reminders, statements).

A letter that is written by one private person and addressed to another is called personal.

Letters that are intended to congratulate an unofficial person, organization or institution on some joyful event or achievement are usually called congratulatory.

Below we will figure out how to finish a letter correctly, depending on its type and purpose.

General structure

Regardless of the type, all letters have approximately the same structure. It is worth noting that the first two points are typical only for official correspondence.

1. Sender's address.
2. Date of.
3. Greetings.
4. Text containing basic information.
5. Final phrases.
6. P.S.

Business correspondence

The writing of this type of correspondence should be treated with special attention, since errors in spelling, punctuation or punctuation by the sender can negatively affect the image of the company or institution that he represents. When composing sentences, preference should be given to simple sentences and a large number of complex constructions should be avoided. The overall tone should be respectful. The main thing is that the essence of the letter should be revealed at its end, since people pay more attention to this particular fragment of the text.

How to end a letter that has official status? The most successful closing phrases are:

• I hope for further fruitful cooperation.
• I hope for continued cooperation.
• Thank you for your attention.
• Sincerely, Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich.
• With respect, Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich.

How to beautifully end a letter to a private person

This type of correspondence does not require special attention from the compiler. However, in the process of writing, a person should still not forget about literacy. In this regard, it is much easier to write emails since errors found can be easily corrected. In the case of handwritten text, you will have to rewrite the finished text.

Before starting the process, you need to decide on the main content and reaction of the recipient. If it is important for the sender to receive a response as soon as possible, then it is better to make appropriate notes in the final part. The ending should be a logical conclusion to everything written above, otherwise it can put the recipient in an awkward position and make him think about what the sender wanted to say.

The most common phrases used at the end of a letter are:

• Your friend, Peter.
• See you!
• Waiting for an answer.
• Kisses, Maria.
• Come as soon as possible.
• All the best, your friend Peter.

The sender can come up with the ending of the letter himself. In this case, it will have a unique character and the recipient will definitely like it.

When answering the question of how you can end a letter of congratulations, you need to pay attention to its appearance. If the sender and recipient are officials, then the final phrases should be neutral. In other cases, a certain freedom is allowed.

Let's sum it up

Question: “How to finish a letter?” - quite logical. Communication by phone and on social networks is based on laws that differ from those adopted during correspondence. However, every person has to act as a letter writer at least once in his life. Therefore, it is necessary to have a general understanding of the canons and rules existing in this area. Otherwise, the first experience may be the last. But writing a letter, sending it and waiting for a response from the addressee is an exciting process.