Formal Letter

Guidelines for Writing a Formal Letter:

Your Address
Your address should appear on the left-hand corner.
2. A horizontal line across the page separates your address from the recipients address.
\

3. Address of the person to whom you are writing

The recipients address should be below your address.

The postcode and name of the town should be underlined.

\

4. Date

The date is written on the right along the same line as the last line of the
recipients address.

The month should be spelt out (i.e. it should be in words, not numbers). It
must be written in full (do not use abbreviations such as Sept) and in
capital letters.
5. Salutation/Greeting

If you know the name of the recipient, then do use his surname (Dear Mr
Tan)

If you do not know the name of the person to whom you are writing, then
use Dear Sir or Madam
6. Subject heading

The subject heading gives the reader an idea what the letter is about.

Write the subject heading directly below the salutation and it should be underlined
7. The body of the letter

The body of the letter refers to the contents of your letter.

It should be divided into short and clear paragraphs.

All paragraphs should be numbered except for the first and last
paragraphs.
a. In the first paragraph, you should state the reason for writing (whether it is to inform, to complain, to invite etc).
b. From the second paragraph onwards, you should include information that is deemed necessary, depending on what
you are writing about. The number of paragraphs depends on what you are writing.
c. In the last paragraph, state what you expect from the recipient. This is usually in the form of an action or response. It
is a common practice to end a formal letter with phrases such as I look forward to hearing from you or I hope prompt
action will be taken to solve this problem. A note of thanks is usually included

Remember to organize the information in a clear and logical manner.

Also, do not write lengthy paragraphs.

8. Ending

You can end the letter by writing Yours faithfully.

In practice, we usually use Yours

sincerely, if we know the recipient but for exam purposes I would advise
you to use only Yours faithfully.
9. Signature
Do not forget to sign the letter and write your name below it in capital letters with in brackets.

DIRECTED: FORMAL LETTER: Letter of Complaint

Raju a/l Lingam,
123 A, Lorong Bahagia,
Taman Sentosa,
07231 Bandar Baru Sentol,
Kelantan
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The President,
Bandar Baru Sentol Council,
Kompleks Utama,
07200 Bandar Baru Sentol
JUNE 2015

17

Dear Sir,
Uncollected Rubbish and Clogged Drains
I am writing this letter is to attract your attention to the above title. As the representative of the community,
I am calling to tell you that the 300 odd residents living in Taman Sentosa are extremely unhappy about the
lackadaisical attitude of the local town council towards the uncollected rubbish and clogged drains in our
area.
2.
The rubbish in our area has not been collected for more than a week. The rubbish is supposed to be
collected on alternate days but this has not been the case. The town council workers collect the rubbish
according to their own whims and fancies. The uncollected garbage has attracted not only flies and
mosquitoes but also wild dogs which had attacked the residents on several occasions. These stray animals
also scatter the rubbish and make the roads dirty and smelly. As a result, residents have to bear the
discomfort of stench from the garbage and risk their health.
3.
We are also disappointed with the town council workers for not clearing the clogged drains which are
filled with rubbish. The drains would usually overflow when there is heavy rain and the rubbish would then
flow into the compounds of our houses. Besides, putting up with the unbearable stench emitted from them,
the residents have to spend hours cleaning their compounds of rotten vegetables, food leftovers and other
rubbish.
4.
Due to dengue outbreak recently, we are really concerned about the residents health especially the
children. Fogging service also was not done accordingly to the schedule. The fogging authority only did their
job whenever a case of dengue aroused. They even fogging the neighbourhood late at night that caused us
to leave the residents. They need to consider the residents who have babies and also to those who need to
wake up early in the morning for work. The fogging also caused the people to have breathing problem when
we were not told the exact time of fogging.
5.
We have made numerous appeals to the Municipal Council to look into our complaints but to no
avail. We have been putting up with this predicament for more than a week. We hope the health authorities
would do something to check these health hazards.
Thank you.

Yours faithfully,
Raju