1. GCE Applied ICT G040: Lesson 09 Business Letter Briefing Notes
Mr C Johnston

2. Learning Outcome
Know the common components of a letter and letter authoring best practice
Can apply best practice to the coursework
Able to select and use appropriate tools and techniques to complete the coursework task

3. Question
What are the main differences between a handwritten and word processed letter?
Video link

4. Activity Download and read through these letter notes
Examine the sample letter opposite
What are the key components of a good letter?

5. Business Letter Template
Purpose
So that Fly-Away-Travel staff can produce all letters in a consistent fashion.
Evidence
Plan for the template
Drafts – annotated with improvement
Final Version
Using “macro buttons” as placeholders for content
Saving as a template rather than word document
DO NOT INCLUDE ANY MAILMERGE FIELDS WITHIN YOUR TEMPLATE

6. Business Letter Purpose Evidence
To remind customers who have a balance on their holiday that it needs to be settled ASAP otherwise it will be cancelled.
Evidence
Detailed plan for your letter
Drafts – annotated with improvements - spelling errors found etc.
Evidence of mail merge
Final Version

7. Steps Forward
Create your letter template – use pg24 of GNVQ book to help (link)
Develop your letter
Download the Fly-Away-Travel database from my website and link it to your completed letter
Include evidence of mail merged communications
Write your commentary

8. Gold Standard Planning
Content (relevant) fully considered
All text (if essay plan each paragraph with main themes)
Images – fully describe
Style of text
Size, font face, decoration, colour
Page decoration
Border width, shading
Colours
Measurements
Pictures, margins
Possible source
Images and essay text not planned 
Image
Image of Dog
Image of brown Alsatian lying down facing outwards 

9. Gold Standard Drafting
Printout your document
Look at your document carefully…
What is good? What is bad? What needs to be improved
Stick a post-it-note onto your work to record your findings
Write onto the draft all the changes you intend to make
Repositioning
Text corrections
Additions
Removals
Use different colours so it standards out

10. Proof Reading Communications
Proofreading is for eliminating spelling and grammar errors in your work.
There is a set of common symbols you could use when checking your work,
These are shown on the next slide.

11. no paragraph
begin new paragraph
a space needed here
close up this space
transpose elements
delete
use a period here
use double quotation marks
insert something
apostrophe or single quotation mark
insert a comma
Example
Meaning
Symbol

12. Business Letter Evidence
TEMPLATE PLAN
a hand drawn sketch of your template
TEMPLATE MADE
a word document saved as a template which can be used to write any letter to anybody – should have all common elements of letter and any page decoration in it
LETTER PLAN
A plan for a letter to a customer of Fly-A-Way travel reminding them that they need to pay for their holiday
This will be a hand drawn and annotated – it will be laid out like your template but will have the actual content in it rather than just the placeholders
LETTER DRAFT 1 & 2 (post-it notes with +ve, -ves, improvements)
FINAL LETTER
MAILMERGE LETTER (chevrons)
MAILMERGE LETTER (examples x3)
COMMENTARY

13. Letter Errors 2016 Template Letter Planning and Drafting Commentary
Common content in wrong place – RE, date, salutation block
Logo poor, Lack of decoration (trade membership logos, accreditations)
Company address wrongly formatted, Company name not spelt right
Content not in the footer at bottom of letter
Letter
Date when should be paid?? 12 weeks before travel
Recipient address wrongly formatted
Title in wrong place and not in title case
Inappropriate content – mainly in content but also some strange mail merge fields
Planning and Drafting
Not gold standard – missing annotation and content consideration
Annotation on plans not in different colour so cant tell different between them and content
Lots of mistakes remaining even in final which drafting should have removed
Commentary
Evaluation weak – need detailed analysis of each draft and final
For each +ves / -ves / improvements related to audience and purpose
Should be ½ to 1 page for each rather than a few lines
Missing evidence of automation, use of software features and development of graphics
Sources were either missing, incorrect or not used the proper notation

14. Spot The Errors…