Formal and Informal Letter

A formal letter is sometimes known as business letter. It is written in formal language and meant to communicate out of personal relationship to address specific issues. On the other hand an informal letter is a friendly letter or a letter addressing close personal relationships in an informal manner.

 A formal Letter                                                                                            Informal letter

                                               Senders details
                                               including, address
                                               e-mail, and  tel
                                               Date of writing

Recipients Address
Details as given on sender
but no Date,
Dear..........Use Sir/ Madam,

Reference of  your Topic/message

Always give a short body that is addressed to your point. Avoid being irrelevant. If complaining be as polite as possible.

 Keep as less paragraph as possible when not using block style.

Thank the addressee in advance and finish on a polite note e.g.  Yours Faithfully
Give your signature at the end.

                                                    Senders details, i.e. address,
                                                    e-mail and tel
                                                     Date

Dear...............

    Give as many paragraphs as possible depending on the respondent. Begin by warm greeting and know how as this is more the same a friendly conversation.

       You can even mix some of your vernacular to official languages more so if you speak same vernacular with the respondent.

      No restrictions are given in terms of punctuation, you can use exclamation marks, questions marks and all you feel that can spice your language.

End in a friendly manner giving the tone to the latter such as yours' magnificently .....

Effect of E- mail on Communication
With the technological advancement, the world has become a global village. You can have your message sent to a person thousands of kilometres away through communication on e-mail. Many business transactions are being carried out through e-mails. Casual conversations have also made their way on e-mails.

Christina Hamlett, 2010 argues that e-mail has worsened the destruction of the good society we had. She feels that individuals are getting their heads down on bad messages circulated in e-mails.   Languages are lucking their grammatical rules as people are communicating in 'destructed' languages with an excuse of it being just a mail. We are therefore supposed to learn that when e-mail is used wrongly, it destroys the society rather than building it.