Oddly enough, there are very few resources on the web about writing business correspondence as a whole. There are many sites on business letters and maybe even more on email, with great tips on how to write both. Note web pages are not that common, and you would have to do a lot of searching to find sites on how to write faxes. One could argue that faxes are slowly dying and that is almost true, they are also merging with email, but today they are still used by many businesses and individuals.

So there are four different types of business correspondence:

• letters,
• emails,
• notes and
• faxes

And those of us who write business correspondence (and that’s pretty much anyone who works in a contemporary office), whether it’s every day or every now and then, we would really like to have a comprehensive resource with tips on how to write all kinds of correspondence. commercial, samples, formats and such.

Each type of business correspondence has its own place and function, and its own peculiarities.

Business letters are the most formal of all, there are quite a few rules that you should remember or at least keep in mind when writing business letters. They have some distinctive formats and the business letter formats are slightly different in the US and the UK. They can also be subdivided into two large groups, letters from business to business and from business to client (or from client to business, although we do not normally distinguish them). There are envelopes too … And since business letters are less common now than they were about ten years ago, it would be great to have a reference resource on hand that outlines all those small but important issues.

Writing a business email message is easier than writing a business letter. The email message is formatted for you, so there are far fewer formatting quirks to consider. But on the other hand, e-mail is a relatively new means of communication and is sent instantly; Those are probably the main reasons for so many email errors. Email’s inherent ability to accumulate is also something we all need to learn to cope with, and this problem is becoming more and more serious.

Notes are now often sent by email, but they remain a separate type of business correspondence. They are usually printed and archived, which is less common when dealing with email (although it is also the case with email messages). Notes have also retained their formatting and are mostly sent as email attachments, not as email messages as such.

Faxes … They look a lot like notes, but mostly in format. Faxes have a cover page that differentiates them from other types of business correspondence. They also include the page count and somehow we often wonder if the cover page should be included in the fax page count (oh yeah!). Faxes are still very good at transmitting handwritten forms, signed pages, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, etc.

There is nothing complicated about writing any kind of business correspondence. But there are some little things that people really don’t like to remember and would rather search just when they need to write a letter, email, note, or fax.