WOMEN'S BUSINESS LETTERS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 318, 3 October 1908, Page 11

WOMEN'S BUSINESS LETTERS.

An American paper gives some hints on writing business letters that cannot fail to be of uso to tho unaccustomed woman who has not had much to do with business correspondence. Women unaccustomed to business methods aro apt to bo trying correspondents when tlioy write upon topics relating to finance or property, or even with regard to orders from shops or dressmakers, 'lhe rule that leads ono not to waste tho time of a busy man when ono calls upon him at his oflico applies with almost equal force to communications with such a man by letter. A woman ■will do well, if she has any business letters to write, to buy a typewriter and learn to use it. The typewriter tends to teach one brevity of expression, for, our wandering trivialities, which we ruthlessly spread over many pages with pen and ink, look their own insignificance when set down in plain type. Women's letters of business would bo much less dreaded by lawyers and others were they commonly typewritten. Order, which should not too much obtrude in frenaly correspondence, though it should be present, is an essential of business letters. A business letter should open with an acknowledgment of that to which it replies, and then should take up tho correspondent's letter paragraph by paragraph and answer as briefly and clearly as may be his suggestions or proposals.' Each topic should be rigorously included within a paragraph or paragraphs into which'nothing olse intrudes, and if important ideas as to a particular topic occur to the writer after other matter has intervened, then the letter should be rewritten, so that tho afterthought shall fall into; its proper place. New proposals in answer to those of tho correspondent should usually havo paragraphs to themselves, but in immediate sequence to the general reply to the proposal on the same topic. Of course, the best way to insure the proper ordering of such a letter is to mako rough notes before writing it at length. Nothing tends more to clcar ono's mind than this very process of making notes of what one means to say, and it sometimes happens that one may go on to write out what ono has in mind without once referring to tho notes simply because the has clarified tho thought. It is good practice against tho time when one may be called upon to write letters of business to precedo our letters of friendship with a rapid jotting down of brief notes upon what wo mean to say.