Example Application Letter 1:
Technical Writing Intern—Annotations

Heading. The heading portion of a business letter includes the writer's address and date. To give her letter more visual appeal, this writer creates a letterhead-style design at the top for her name address, and phone. For traditional business letters, you don't normally include your name in the heading—this is a neat trick to include it and a nice way of adding a sense of professionalism to the letter as a whole.

Inside address. The inside address provides the full name, title, and address of the recipient of the letter. If you do not have a specific name, call the company or use some other strategy to find a name. An department name (which is used in this example) or a position title will work just fine.

Salutation. In this portion of the letter, use the same name as you used in the inside address. Be sure and punctuate the salutation with a colon, not a comma (which is for informal, friendly, nonbusiness letters).

Introduction. The introduction to any business letter should be brief—four or five lines at the most. In this application letter, the writer states the purpose of the letter (to apply for an employment opening), cites the specific job title, mentions how she heard about the opening, and refers to her attached resume. Instead of mentioning the resume, application-letter writers often mention their best qualification, someone they know within the company, someone they know who is known to people within the company, or some detail about the company they are applying to. Details like these are designed to hook readers in and make them keep reading.

Experience. This letter takes the fairly common approach—at least for people early in their careers—of having two body paragraphs, one for experience and the other for education. Notice how this writer makes the overt connection between her experience and the job she's applying for. Don't leave it up to the reader to see those connections!

Newspaper, magazine, and book titles. Use italics (or underscores) for newspaper names, as well as for magazines and books. (Use quotation marks for titles of chapters or articles within newspapers, magazines, and books.)

Education. This is the other commonly section for people just getting out of college or just starting their careers. This writer does nothing with the information she presents here to relate it to the job she is seeking. She could provide some details on her coursework, special projects, or other such and explain how it relates. however, she does demonstrate a good understanding of the job—specifically of internships.

Additional support. This writer scores several points in this final body paragraph. First, she indicates she's an experienced team player without saying "I'm a team player." It's always more effective refer to examples where a quality is in action rather than merely state that you have that quality. Secondly, she indicates that she knows people within the area of the organization to which she is applying.

Wrap-up. This final portion of the application letter contains the concluding paragraph and the signature block. Writers typically include information about contacting them, such as phone numbers, dates, and times. When you write an application letter, don't forget to sign in the open area above your typed name. Also don't forget to indicate the enclosure of the resume.