A letter of complaint: writing tips Formal letters: review Letters of complaint are usually formal, so it can be useful to review some conventions for writing formal letters. Salutations: If you know the name of the person you are writing to, you should write Dear Mr Smith,… for men and Dear Ms Johnson,… for women. You can use Mrs for women who are married and Miss for women who are not married, but it is more appropriate to use Ms in all cases. If the person you are writing to has some special position, you can mention it instead of writing Mr or Ms (for instance: Dear Dr Jones,…). If you do not know who exactly you are writing to, you can write Dear Sir or Madam,…. Closing the letter: If you know the person you are writing to, you should write Yours sincerely at the end of the letter. If you do not know the person, you should write Yours faithfully instead. Addresses and dates: If you are writing a traditional letter (instead of an email), you should include your own address and the recipient’s address in it, as well as the date. There are different formats for writing this information, but this one is rather standard: -
Your address should go at the top of the page, on the right-hand side.
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The recipient’s address should go below your address, on the lefthand side.
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The date should go below both addresses, on the right-hand side.