nvariably produce upon the reader the effect
that the writer desires. You may have heard of "irresistible"
letters--sales letters that would sell electric fans to Esquimaux or ice
skates to Hawaiians, collection letters that make the thickest skinned
debtor remit by return mail, and other kinds of resultful, masterful
letters that pierce to the very soul. There may be such letters. I doubt
it. And certainly it is not worth while trying to concoct them. They are
the outpourings of genius. The average letter writer, trying to be a
genius, deludes only himself--he just becomes queer, he takes to unusual
words, constructions, and arrangements. He puts style before thought--he
thinks that the way he writes is more important than what he writes. The
writer of the business letter does well to avoid "cleverness"--to avoid
it as a frightful and devastating disease.

The purpose of a business letter is to convey a thought that will lead
to some kind of action--immediately or remotely. Therefore there are
only two rules of importance in the composition of the business letter.

The first is: Know what you want to say.

The second is: Say it.

And the saying is not a complicated affair--it is a matter of "one
little word after another."

Business letters may be divided into two general classes:

(1) Where it is assumed that the recipient will want to read
the letter,

(2) Where it is assumed that the recipient will not want to
read the letter.

The first class comprises the ordinary run of business correspondence.
If I write to John Smith asking him for the price of a certain kind of
chair, Smith can assume in his reply that I really want that information
and hence he will give it to me courteously and concisely with whatever
comment on the side may seem necessary, as, for instance, the fact that
this particular type of chair is not one that Smith would care to
recommend and that Style X, costing $12.00, would be better.

The ordinary business letter is either too wordy or too curt; it either
loses the subject in a mass of words or loses the reader by offensive
abruptness. Some letters gush upon the most ordinary of subjects; they
are interspersed with friendly ejaculations such as "Now, my dear Mr.
Jones," and give the impression that if one ever got face to face with
the writer he would effervesce all over one's necktie. Many a man takes
a page to say what ought to be said in four lines. On the other hand