Date and Address in a Business Letter

Where should the date and place appear at the top of a letter: left or right?

A line like 'New York, February 29, 2012' is more often left than right.

There is a wide variety of letter formats, but the layout that is used most often today is the "American new style." The most important characteristics are:

- all fixed letter parts start on the left against the margin;
- the order of the fixed components is: sender, address, place and date, subject, characteristic,
- salutation, letter content, final formula and signature, attachments and copy;
- the paragraphs are not separated by indentation, but by a blank line.

Incidentally, the details of the sender at companies are often in a different place, for example in the letterhead, in the upper right corner or at the bottom.

Business letter structure example

A good letter example could looks like the following:

International Language School
Ring Way 1a
2596 New York

A. Smith
Main Sreet 5
1234 AB New York

New York, February 29, 2012

Subject: membership

Dear Ms. Smith,

[Here comes the text of the letter.]

Sincerely,
On behalf of International Language School

[signature]
Linda Antony

If your letter is in the form of email emails, so your contact information must be located under your signnature.

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