汇丰商务英语写作教程（27）

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Welcome to Chapter 7.

In Chapter 6, you learned how to write courteous letters. You practised achieving a courteous tone by writing sentences that were polite, positive, personal and professional.

However, you can't always achieve the right tone simply by writing courteous sentences. Sometimes, the way you organise the information affects the tone of your letters.

In this chapter, you'll learn the best way to structure the contents so you achieve the right tone... especially when you write \"difficult letters\".

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you'll have practised achieving the right tone as you write the following three kinds of difficult letters:

persuading a customer to accept your suggestion
refusing a customer's request
responding to a customer's unjustified complaint.

Difficult Letters: What Are They?

Some letters are easy to write. Others are more difficult. In this chapter, you'll learn how to write some of these difficult letters.

Whenever you have to say \"no\" to a colleague or customer, the letter will be difficult to write.

When you write these difficult letters, you need to put yourself in the reader's place. You need to consider how the reader will feel when you say \"no\".

You can do several things to help your reader accept what you write. First of all, you must make sure that your sentences are polite, positive, personal and professional. Then, you need to structure the contents of these letters in an appropriate way.

In this chapter, you'll learn the appropriate pattern for writing three types of difficult letters.

You'll learn to write each type of letter as part of a case study. To discover the procedure you'll follow for each case study, move your mouse pointer over the numbers below.

1. read about the situation which requires you to write a letter
2. evaluate the tone of the first draft (written by a colleague)
3. identify ways to improve the draft and achieve the right tone
4. rewrite the letter.