Business studies courses teach rubbish!!!

[cassa333]

I mourned the day when letter writing lost the indent on the first line of every new paragraph and I am even more saddened that the right side of professional letters and documents are no longer justified.

From my old school eyes it is lazy and sloppy and shows a lack of care and I just can't bare to write letters without it. I have been told off and HAVE to do it the 'new and modern' way if I am to write a letter on the behalf of the charity I volunteer for. :(

I might never write another letter again :( :( :(

[rojash]

presumably though, you have no objection to the use of emoticons :-)

[cassa333]

Within the context of a professional letter I would not use them.

[cassa333]

I would also use spell checker as well because I can't spell :)

[boxtops]

I have to disagree with you, cassa - things move on, I was taught to type in the same way as you but that's distinctly old-fashioned now, and corporate style is important.

By the way I never learned how to present a letter in Business Studies - this is secretarial work, my business studies courses never included anything like this!

It#s not the course which is rubbish at all - it's a matter of moving with the times, I'm afraid, and to be honest I now don't like the old-fashioned style. This comes from someone who learned on a steam typewriter, when you had to count the letters in documents to make sure they were centred, and you had to type your own lines on spreadsheets....

[HowardKennitby]

I have never justified text in anything. I think it looks dreadful.

[tenrec]

Agree with all boxy says. Those were the days, steam driven typewriters!

[factor-fiction]

I sometimes feel this way about things but have learnt to live with it and accept that things change. I stopped indenting paragraphs on letters a long time ago. I no longer put full stops after Mr or Mrs. Nor do I put the recipient's address on the left hand side of the letter.I no longer worry about whether to say who or whom. And I will now sometimes start a sentence with 'And' or 'But'. But I doubt I will ever use textspeak in a business letter.
If your employer has a corporate style for its letters then it's probably best just to go along with it.

[cassa333]

I know I am a dinosorus with letter writing. Just because things 'move on' doesn't, in my opinion, always make them better.

My eyes will get used to sloppyiness in time, dumbing down creeps up on all of us and I will probably look upon this time with nostalgia. Slang and textspeak will be drip fed into professionalism and before you know it there will be no such thing as a professional letter as we know it.

Oh well... time drifts on.

[factor-fiction]

Hi cassa333- do you think there was a 'golden-age' for our language, and if so when was it?
I like (oops, we were not allowed to use that word at school) reading newspaper that include news articles from 20, 50 and 100 years ago- I enjoy comparing the styles and can see that my writing style is more suited to 50 years ago. The articles from 100 years ago were written in such a formal, long-winded way that just looks odd now.

[Hymie]

You might use a spell checker, but it won’t spot the incorrect spelling of the word ‘bear’. The MS spell checker on my PC regularly confuses ‘advise’ with ‘advice’; ‘their’ with ‘there’ – and so on.

If I couldn’t spell, the last thing I would worry about would be the layout of the text.

[wolf63]

I left school in 1980 and we were not taught to put an indent on the first line of a letter. I admit that I don't send many letters these days.

I hate it when text is justified - it looks false. My spelling, grammar and punctuation are of a reasonable standard, but spell-checkers were a great invention - I tend to misspell the same words all the time.

For words like 'advise' and 'advice', 'life' and 'live' & 'affect' and 'effect' etc. I have to sit and say the words over and over before deciding which one to use.

I still try to use sentences in texts - I think that is the sign that I am a dinosaur of sorts.

:-)