حسن خليل
09-11-06, 04:03 PM
The Principles of Letter Writing
Let us try to define precisely what these guiding principles are. First come the crucial matters of purpose and content. We must always be quite clear about why we are writing the letter. If it is meant as an apology, we must be sure that we really apologise and do not merely repeat the offence; if it is supposed to be a letter of congratulation, you must not let it degenerate into a letter of condolence; if it is intended as an order for goods one firm to another, the writer must see that it does not develop into a complaint, and so on. We must also be certain about what we have to say before we begin, and quite sure we have said it after we have finished. Except in letters to intimate friends, this will usually involve jotting down the various points before starting the actual letter and then making a rough draft, or even two or three, before writing the final version. No one need be ashamed of planning and pruning in this way. Even great literature is sometimes far from spontaneous, and Virginia Woolf, to take only a recent example, often rewrote a mere newspaper article as seven or eight times. As Ben Johnson wrote in his ‘Timber, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter’ (1604): ‘Ready writing makes not good writing; but good writing brings on ready writing.’ In other words, on does not necessarily write well if one writes easily, but ease of writing will come after one has learnt to write well.
A spontaneous flow of language which has not been subjected to critical examination is sometimes dangerous and for this reason it is advisable never to seal the letter in its envelope immediately it has been singed. It should be left for a while and re-read later with a cold and objective eye. Phrases which seemed felicitous and effective in the heat of composition turn out to be unsuitable and even ridiculous when scrutinised some hours later. The following extract from a letter to a Welfare Department in the U.S.A. will show how essential it is to say what one means and to check carefully that one has in fact said it:
‘ I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my three children, one of which is a mistake as you can see.’
What the writer really meant was:
‘I am forwarding my marriage certificate and the birth certificate of my three children, on one of which there is a mistake, as you can see.’
Choosen from Letter Writing in English
For Brian Deakin
With Best regards
Hassan Khalil
Let us try to define precisely what these guiding principles are. First come the crucial matters of purpose and content. We must always be quite clear about why we are writing the letter. If it is meant as an apology, we must be sure that we really apologise and do not merely repeat the offence; if it is supposed to be a letter of congratulation, you must not let it degenerate into a letter of condolence; if it is intended as an order for goods one firm to another, the writer must see that it does not develop into a complaint, and so on. We must also be certain about what we have to say before we begin, and quite sure we have said it after we have finished. Except in letters to intimate friends, this will usually involve jotting down the various points before starting the actual letter and then making a rough draft, or even two or three, before writing the final version. No one need be ashamed of planning and pruning in this way. Even great literature is sometimes far from spontaneous, and Virginia Woolf, to take only a recent example, often rewrote a mere newspaper article as seven or eight times. As Ben Johnson wrote in his ‘Timber, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter’ (1604): ‘Ready writing makes not good writing; but good writing brings on ready writing.’ In other words, on does not necessarily write well if one writes easily, but ease of writing will come after one has learnt to write well.
A spontaneous flow of language which has not been subjected to critical examination is sometimes dangerous and for this reason it is advisable never to seal the letter in its envelope immediately it has been singed. It should be left for a while and re-read later with a cold and objective eye. Phrases which seemed felicitous and effective in the heat of composition turn out to be unsuitable and even ridiculous when scrutinised some hours later. The following extract from a letter to a Welfare Department in the U.S.A. will show how essential it is to say what one means and to check carefully that one has in fact said it:
‘ I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my three children, one of which is a mistake as you can see.’
What the writer really meant was:
‘I am forwarding my marriage certificate and the birth certificate of my three children, on one of which there is a mistake, as you can see.’
Choosen from Letter Writing in English
For Brian Deakin
With Best regards
Hassan Khalil