For a long time the letter, as a trace to the task, has been underestimated and set aside by the teachers, as it is not considered an theme in all respects. Today, on the other hand, it seems that you have discovered your usefulness: learning to write a letter in order to communicate with others or with public bodies is very important for the future of children. So, how to do if the professor assigns us a letter to the task?
- Types of letter
There are basically two types of letters:
• Private letter: it can be paper or electronic, ie sent by email. The private letter is intended for a single interlocutor, and can be formal or informal. The informal letter is intended for a friend or relative. The formal letter is instead addressed to a public or private body, to a professional, or it is a work letter.
• Open letter: it is a public letter, which can be addressed to a politician or another well-known person, and is of free circulation.
- Structure of the letter
The structure of the letter is always the same, however there are some differences, in particular between formal letter and informal letter.
Informal letter
The informal letter is the type most requested during a class assignment. It must have the following parts:
• Place and date (eg Rome, 18/03/2014);
• Greeting formula, with the name of the recipient (eg Dear Sofia, but also my dear friend, etc.);
• Introduction: it is a sort of introduction to the actual letter. He can indicate the mood of the sender, the reason for the letter, the situation in which he is writing (eg I’m really happy to have found the time to write to you, I absolutely need to tell you some things);
• Body of the letter: it is the actual letter, which contains descriptions, the story of an event that has occurred, the display of feelings in a given situation;
• Farewell formula: it is the formula with which the letter is closed (eg, with affection, I hope to hear from you soon, etc.);
• Signature (Your Andrea etc …);
Formal Letter
The formal letter has the same basis as the informal letter, but with some minor differences:
• Sender: the sender with the data (name, surname, street, cap, city, province) must be inserted at the top left;
• Heading: in the top right hand corner the data of the recipient must be entered, putting before the name “Spectator”;
Object: the object briefly indicates the content of the letter or the reason why it is written;
• Greeting formula: by contacting a person in a formal way, we must use formulas such as “Egregio”, “Gent.le”, “Gent.mo”;
• Introduction: like the informal letter, the letter is introduced briefly.
• Body of the letter: the formal letter has a short, simple and direct text. The key thing is to contact the recipient always giving you or you;
• Salutation: the letter must be concluded with a salutation, which can be “Kind regards”, “Best regards” etc …
• Place and date: after a few lines we can write the date and the place where we are writing;
• Signature: finally we can sign with our name and surname;
- How to write a letter: Reading the trace and writing
Generally, in a track of a task in class, you are asked to address the letter to a friend, an imaginary person, or a famous person from the past. We must be careful about what the track says, and try to insert all the required elements. If in fact we are asked to talk about a precise situation (a journey, an unpleasant event, an important event), we must first of all talk about this, and then eventually integrate it with something else related.
Review of the letter
Once we have written our letter, with the various parts placed in the right place, we can read it again to identify any errors and correct them. If we are not sure about the spelling we check the vocabulary, and if what sentence is too long and twisted we try to make it more smooth and readable. Without this, we can copy in good copy and deliver our job!