WRITING SKILLS

INFORMAL LETTER
An informal letter, also referred to as a friendly letter, is a personal letter written to friends or
relatives. It is written in personal fashion. You can write it to anyone with whom you have
a non-professional relationship, although this doesn't exclude business partners or workers
whom you're friendly with either.
There are fewer formatting rules for informal letters than there are for business or formal
letters. The letter can be used for some reasons like conveying message, news, giving advice,
congratulate recipient, request information, asking questions, etc. It is a personal letter, written
to whom you are familiar with, like friends, siblings, parents or any other closed one. While
writing an informal letter, one can afford to be friendly, and make use of personal or emotional
tone.

Address
The first thing to write is your address, i.e. the address of the writer (basically, the sender’s
address). We usually write the address on the left-hand side of the page at the very top. The
address should be accurate and complete. Even when writing to close friends or relatives the
address must be written, so they can reply back to the letter with ease. If the recipient of the
letter is in another country, do not forget to write your country as well in the address.

Date
Next just below the address we write the date. This allows the reader to have a reference as to
when the informal letter was written. He can then relate better to the contents of the letter.
The date, preferably, should be in expanded form.

Greeting
Now since you know the person you are writing to, the greeting can be informal as well. If it is a
friend or someone close to your age you can greet them by their first name, like “Dear Alex”. If
you are writing to your relative like your mother/father/aunt/uncle etc, you may greet them as
such, for example, “Dear Mom”. And if you are writing to an elder person, someone you respect
greatly you can address them as Mr or Mrs. Like say for example you were writing a
congratulatory letter to your teacher, it can be addressed as “Dear Mrs. Alex”.

Introductory Paragraph
And now we begin writing the actual letter. The introductory paragraph sets the tone for the
whole letter. You might begin by asking the recipient about their well being. Or you may say
 that you hope the letter finds them in good health and great spirits. The opening of informal
letters should be casual and comforting. It must not be formal and direct as in business letters.

Body of the Letter

The letter overall should maintain a friendly tone. But you have to adjust the language and the
wordings according to who you are writing to. With a friend, you can afford to be very casual
and flippant even. But if you are writing to an elder relative, you must be extremely respectful
and considerate.
One way to determine the tonality of your letter is to remember how you talk to the person in a
conversation. And then apply the same syntax and sentiments to the letter.

Conclusion
In the conclusive paragraph sum up the reason for writing the letter, i.e. summarize the letter.
Say a meaningful and affectionate goodbye to the reader. And do not forget to invite the reader
to write back or reply to your letter. It shows an intention to keep the conversation going.

Signature
There is no one way to sign off informal letters. Since they do not follow a strict format, you
may sign off as you please. Some commonly used phrases are

 Lots of Love

 Best,

 Best Wishes,

 Kind Regards

 Kindly

Pick the one that best suits the occasion and then simply sign your name below the greeting.
FORMAT:
It consists of 6 parts:

1. SENDER’S ADDRESS
The sender’s address is written on the left hand side. It is written in the following order:
Name of the house/ Apt. number, Name of the Road
Name of the City
Name of the State(optional)

NOTE: We write each line below the other and do not use comma to mark off the address
e.g.
B-31/8 Lawrence Road
New Delhi 110028
21 July 20..
[If writing within the country, the name of the country may be omitted.]

2. DATE
The date comes just under the writer’s address and can be written in the following ways:
July 21, 20../ 21 July 20..

3. THE SALUTATION
The form of the salutation can be either ‘My Dear’ or ‘Dear’ depending on the writer’s
relationship with the addressee. ‘My Dear’ is more intimate than ‘Dear’ and is generally written
to blood relations and very close friends.
My dear Father
My dear Arun (Capitalize the words Father, Uncle, etc.)
Normally, a friend is addressed as ‘Dear Ashish’ and not ‘Dear Friend’.

4. THE BODY
The body of the letter has three parts:
(a) The opening sentence, which could be any of the following:
Thank you very much for your invitation.
I’m writing after a long time.
You have not written for long.
I was delighted to receive your letter.
Write something nice about the last time when you both met / wrote. (Avoid overused
expressions)
Such as ‘Hope you are well’, ‘How are you?’, ‘I am fine’ etc.)

(b) The message which is the main part of the letter, could be an answer to a letter received or
a letter on whatever topic one wishes to write. The language must be simple, everyday
language with short sentences and should be conversational.
(c) The last part of the body is the closing, which can even be any of the following:
With love…..
Please remember me to ……
Please give my regards …….
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Leave a line to change paragraph, start once again from the margin.

5. SUBSCRIPTION OR THE CLOSING OF THE LETTER

It depends on the writer’s relationship with the addressee. It is written on the left hand of
the page. A capital letter begins the closing line and a comma is used to end. In the closing
line,Yours is a possessive here and takes no apostrophe.
To close relatives and friends, one writes
Yours affectionately
Yours lovingly
Your loving friend
Your affectionate son/ daughter/ brother/ sister etc.

6. NAME
The name of the writer should be written last of all, just below the subscription.
Yours affectionately
Vineet
SAMPLE:
EXERCISES:
Attempt any two topics of your choice :
 Your uncle is returning from America. He wishes to bring you a present of your choice.
Write a letter telling him what you want.

 You have organized a theme party for the children of your society. Ask your friend to
impersonate one of the famous/popular characters from the children’s book, to entertain
them. Write a letter giving him/her the details.

 You have celebrated your birthday recently by going to an orphanage. Write a letter to your
friend describing how you celebrated there and how this event has changed the course of
your life.

 Your neighbour is a part of a musical band. He practices after 10 pm every night which
disturbs you, especially during the examination days. Write a letter to him telling him about
your problem and what steps he should take to solve it.

 Write a letter to your friend telling him/her about the book that you have recently read.
You can take help of the following clues
 the theme/ subject of the book
 your favourite characters
 part/ extract you won’t forget