Comprehension check. Answer the following questions on the text.

1. What parameters of letter appearance should be taken in consideration? 2. What can failure to observe correct business letter etiquette result in? 3. What are compulsory parts of a business letter? 4. Which parts of a business letter can be omitted? 5. In what order do the parts of a business letter appear? 6. What information about the organization can be included in letterhead ex­cept postal address? 7. Does the inside address coincide with the address that appears on the envelope? 8. Why is the inside address always on the left margin? 9. Are the names of the months in date line abbreviated? 10. How can the inclusion of the subject line help the recipient? 11. What will you end the letter with, if you begin it with «Dear Sir»? 12. What initials should be used before the name of a signer, if he/she signs a letter on behalf of someone else?

Decide if the following statements are true or false.

1. A business letter is an informal means of communication between organi­zations and their customers. 2. There are many different types of business letters. 3. Business letter appearancemakes no impression on its reader. 4. Companies usually use printed paper for business letters. 5. Attention line should be underlined or typed in capitals. 6. Subject line may be omitted. 7. The actual message of your letter is called body. 8. Company signature should be used when the signer of the letter is writing as a spokesperson for the company.

4. Translate the following sentences into English using the target vocab­ulary (Exercise 1).

1. Деловая переписка осуществляется между юридическими лицами (предприятиями, организациями, учреждениями, фирмами) и помогает ре­шать важнейшие вопросы их экономико-правовой деятельности. 2. Суще­ствуют определенные требования к внешнему виду делового письма, со­блюдение которых окажет воздействие на адресата. 3. Большинство орга­низаций используют официальные бланки для деловых писем, содержащих название и реквизиты организации. 4. Шапка, дата отправления и внутрен­ний адрес относятся к обязательным составляющим частям делового письма. 5. Содержание делового письма должно быть ясным и кратким. 6. К необязательным частям делового письма относятся: указания на кон­кретного адресата, на общее содержание письма, на приложения, на рас­сылку копий. 7. Концовка делового письма обычно содержит вежливую формулу – «Искренне Ваш…». 8. Адресная строка должна быть напеча­тана заглавными буквами.

5. Read Text B and match the English words with their Russian equiva­lents.

Text B. What is email?

In its simplest form, email is an electronic message sent from one device to another. With email, you can send or receive personal and business-related mes­sages with attachments, such as photos or formatted documents. You can also send music, video clips and software programmes. Internet email addresses typi­cally have two main parts, for example: student@university.com.

First there is the user name (student) that refers to the recipient’s mailbox. Then there’s an at sign (@). Next comes the host name (university), also called the domain name. This refers to the mail server, the computer where the recipi­ent has an electronic mailbox. It’s usually the name of a company or organiza­tion. The end of the domain name consists of a dot (".") followed by three or more letters (such as. com and. gov) that indicate the top-level domain (TLD). This part of the domain name indicates the type of organization or the country where the host server is located.

These top-level domains are currently in use:. aero – for the air-transport in­dustry;. com – for businesses, commercial enterprises, or online services like America Online. Most companies use this extension;. edu – for educational in­stitutions and universities;. info – for all users;. org – for non-commercial or­ganizations;. pro – for use by professionals, such as attorneys and physicians.

For e-mail addresses outside of the United States, there is often a two letter country code. For instance,. ca indicates Canada,. uk indicates the United King­dom and. mx indicates Mexico.

Account names can use letters and numbers, such as «student2007», can’t contain any spaces, and are limited in length, depending on the service. Internet e-mail messages consist of two major sections: header – structured into fields such as summary, sender, receiver, and other information about the e-mail; body – the message itself as unstructured text, sometimes containing a signature block at the end. The header is separated from the body by a blank line. Messages usu­ally have at least four fields in the header: 1. From: the e-mail address, and op­tionally name, of the sender of the message. 2. To: the e-mail addresses, and op­tionally names, of the receiver of the message. 3. Subject: a brief summary of the contents of the message. 4. Date: the local time and date when the message was originally sent.

Here are some general tips as a reminder for writing good emails. Use a «subject line» that summarizes briefly and clearly the content of the message. Your email may be one of hundreds on the recipient’s computer, and you want them to read it when it arrives and then find it again easily in their files. Use short, simple sentences. Long sentences are often difficult to read and under­stand. The most common mistake for learners of English is to translate directly from their own language. Usually the result is a complicated, confusing sen­tence. One subject per email is best. The other person can reply to an email about one thing, delete it, and leave another email in their «Inbox» that needs more time. Be very careful with jokes, irony, personal comments etc. Humour rarely translates well from one culture to another. And if you are angry, wait for 24 hours before you write. Once you press «Send» you cannot get your email back. It can be seen by anyone and copied and sent round the world. The infor­mal nature of email makes people write things that they shouldn’t. Only write what you would be comfortable saying to the person’s face. Take a moment to review and edit what you have written. Is the main point clear? If in doubt, ask a colleague to quickly look through and make comments.

Don’t ignore capital letters, punctuation, spelling, paragraphs, and basic grammar. It might be okay when you are writing to a very close friend, but to everyone else it’s an important part of the image that you create. Be positive! The words you use show your attitude to life.