Expert: Leslie - 12/29/2003

Question
2 Qs:
1. found a site that said business letters should end with "yours faithfully" if you don't know the person and "yours sincerely" if you do. I've never heard this before and find it very odd. Is this a common business letter practice?
2. Placement of date in business letter: found examples on business writing sites that have the date in two locations: a) after both addresses and b) after writer's address but before delivery address. Which is correct? Or are both okay?

Answer
Matt,

Your questions are matters of style. The short answer is it depends.

Q1. I have not heard of using "Yours faithfully" anywhere except for correspondence among members of a church. "Sincerely" is an appropriate closing, "Regards" is an appropriate closing, but even "Yours sincerely" is a bit personal for any business correspondence. Current templates in Word and other word processing programs often include a one word closing, so that would be considered common practice. You should check with your company's style manual for their accepted practice.

Q2. The date needs to be placed above the recipient's address and below the sender's address. Its location on the letter depends, again, on the style of the letter. A flush left, block letter style places the sender's address on the top, a blank line, the date, a blank line, the recipient's name, the recipient's address, a blank line, the salutation, etc.

If you are using company stationary, there is no sender's address because the stationary should have that information. In that case, depending on the style of the letter, the date can be on the right or flush left. You need to check again with the company style manual. If the company likes, they may put it in the footer upside down. (I am being fascious here, but you get my point.)

If this letter is your personal letter, and there is no style manual, may I suggest that you use one of the templates suggested by your word processing application. These letters are designed by experts, and the guidance they offer is expert.

Hope this answers your questions.

Leslie