Toxin - WRITING ASSIGNMENT #1

 

PROMPT

Your assignment is to write a letter to 3 doctors  - 1 from within the county, one from within the state (excluding this county) and one from another state - requesting information on the growing E. coli problem and what experiences they have had with it. It would be in your best interest to make sure that these are doctors that deal with this kind of problem. These letters can be either mailed or emailed, but they must be in proper business letter format.

 

 

PREWRITING

Be sure to include the three part of a business letter so that your information is well organized and easily understood:

1)      a summary statement (one sentence that states the purpose of the letter)

2)      background (details and circumstances leading up to the letter)

3)      facts (all details the reader needs to understand what the letter is about)

4)      outcome (a request for action and/or thanks in advance)

 

DRAFTING

A properly drafted letter has several specific parts that must be included and adhered to. (1) a date the letter was sent should be at the top (2) a recipient address should follow this, (3) next a salutation, (4) then a subject line. (5)After this, place the body paragraphs as described in the prewriting. Finally include a full closure including your signature.

 

All business letters should be single spaced and left justified with line breaks between each section They should have 1 inch margins and be written in 12 point font. See handout to see a properly formatted example.

 

PROOFREADING

The letter you write should be clear, courteous, and professional. Once you’ve completed a final draft of your letter, carefully proofread it to correct punctuation errors. Comma use errors in particular can make your letter difficult to understand; as a result, you may not get the information you need.