Task 1 Letter Writing
Each letter has a main purpose or reason for writing the letter and these can be divided into a number of categories.
Thanking someone
Complaining about someone or something
Apologizing about something
Inviting someone to something
Leaving something – a job, a club, your country
Applying for something - a job
Recommending someone or something
Requesting help (asking for information)
There can be overlapping question types. For example, you night be leaving for a holiday and ask your friend to stay at your house to look after it. This is ‘leaving’ and ‘requesting’. So, read the instructions carefully.
What is the Examiner looking for?
It is possible to divide what the examiner is looking for when he reads your letter into four criteria.
• Task Achievement
You need to provide information for all of the bullet points and use the correct tone (formal or informal) throughout the letter.
• Coherence and Cohesion
You need to use paragraphs, one for each bullet point, as well as write an appropriate opening and closing statement. You also need to link ideas together.
• Lexical resource
You need to use vocabulary that is appropriate for the topic. If the tone is formal then you cannot use informal vocabulary and vice versa.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy
You need to use a range of simple and complex sentence structures and avoid making too many errors.
If you can do all of this you are well on the way to getting a good grade.
The Tone of a Letter
Setting the tone of a letter is an essential part of writing a good letter. There are varying levels of formality and informality but for the purposes of the letters you need to write in the IELTS exam we can work with two - formal and informal.
Formal Letter
The formal letters will be writing to someone you don’t know or someone you don’t know very well. This could be to a store to complain about a product that you bought - to a company to apply for a job - to a fitness club to tell them that you want to stop your membership and so on.
Informal Letter
The informal letters will be writing to someone that you know well and are on first name terms with. This could be to invite them to a house warming party - to ask them for information about a university that they attended - to thank them for a lovely weekend spent together and so on.
Setting the Tone
The tone of the letter is set by:
The way you begin the letter.
The way you end the letter.
Vocabulary
Beginning/Ending a Letter
Formal Letters
If you do not use the name of the person you are writing to you can use:
Dear Sir / Yours faithfully,
Dear Madam / Yours faithfully,
Dear Sir or Madam / Yours faithfully,
OR
If you do know the name of the person you are writing to but use their family name rather than their first name you can use:
Dear Mr. Smith / Yours sincerely,
Dear Mrs Smith / Yours sincerely,
Dear Ms Smith / Yours sincerely,
N.B.
Don’t forget to add the comma after faithfully and sincerely.
Informal Letters
If you know the person well and write to them using their first name you can use:
Dear John / See you soon,
Dear Mary / Take care,
Dear Anne / Best wishes
Vocabulary
While the way you begin the letter: sets the tone,
- Dear Mr. Smith
- Hi John
You need to continue this tone in the main paragraphs. You do this by the vocabulary and the phrases that you choose. While some words and phrases are more neutral and can be used in both formal and informal letters others are clearly one or the other.
Formal Letters
Never use contractions like - I’m, they’ve and so on.
Informal Letters
Contractions can and should be used as this shows the examiner that you know they can be used in informal letters.
Formal Informal
my house my place
I really enjoyed meeting you It was great to see you
I really appreciate your help Thanks for your help
I rarely have time to go now I visit once in a blue moon
Last week I met my landlord Today I bumped into Charle
Main Purpose of the Letter
The main purpose of the letter is stated in the first sentence of the information given to you. This gives you the direction as well as the tone of the letter.
If you see the word ‘manager’, ‘boss’, ‘bank’, and so on then the letter is going to be formal.
If you see the word ‘friend’, ’classmate’, ’flat mate’ and so on then the letter is going to be informal.
When you write your letter it is important not to copy phrases from the information given to you. The examiner will not count these words and so this might mean that some students fail to reach the minimum of 150 words. DO NOT COPY!
It is OK, however, to use the key words, or most important words, as these provide the focus for the letter.
and can help you to develop the bullet points that follow.
Three Bullet Points
Each letter comes with three bullet points that MUST be answered in your letter.
For reasons of Cohesion and Coherence (one of the criteria used to judge your writing) it is a very good idea to use a separate paragraph for each bullet point.
So, three bullet points means three paragraphs. Each of these should be developed equally as much as possible with each paragraph being about 40 - 50 words.
To be able to develop each bullet point you have to do more than just answer the instructions.
For example
Your neighbors have recently written to you to complain about the noise from your flat.
Write a letter to your neighbors. In your letter
explain the reasons for the noise
apologise
describe what action you will take
If you simple write;
I have started to learn the electric guitar.
I am very sorry about this.
I promise not to do this again.
This must be developed by inventing, or making, up a story with realistic information that allows you to write more.
Three Bullet Points
Dear Neighbor,
I am writing to you in response to your letter complaining about the noise I have been making.
I recently started to learn the electric guitar because this is something I have always been interested in but never had the time to study. Now I have graduated from university I can devote some of my time to this.
I apologise for causing such a problem for you. I did not know that you are working at the local hospital at night and need to sleep during the day. I can understand how frustrated and angry this must have made you.
Now that I know the situation I will only practice my guitar at night when you are working. If they are not too expensive, I will buy a set of headphones so I can use them when I am playing. I do not want to annoy any other neighbors.
I am very sorry for causing a problem for you and promise not to do this again.
Yours faithfully,
This is now 166 words in total - not including the beginning and ending. You can see how the original ideas have been developed and turned into a realistic letter of apology for a situation that could really have happened.