The best way to secure a uniform policy is a practical question. Some houses employ a correspondent expert to spend a few weeks in the correspondence department just the same as an expert auditor is employed to systematize the accounting department. In other houses the book of rules is a matter of evolution, the gradual adding of new points as they come up and as policies are tried out, a process of elimination determining those that should be adopted. In some concerns the correspondents have regular meetings to discuss their problems and to decide upon the best methods of meeting the situations that arise in their work. They read letters that have pulled, analyze the arguments and in this way try to raise the quality of their written messages.
While it must be admitted that some men have a natural faculty of expressing themselves clearly and forcibly, the fact remains that letter writing is an art that may be acquired. It necessitates a capacity to understand the reader's attitude; it requires careful study and analysis of talking points, arguments and methods of presentation, but there is no copyright on good letters and any house can secure a high standard and be assured that distant customers are handled tactfully and skilfully if a uniform policy is worked out and systematically applied.
Making Letters UNIFORM In Appearance
PART IV—THE DRESS OF A BUSINESS LETTER—CHAPTER 15
Business stationery should reflect the house that sends it out but unless specific rules are adopted there will be a lack of uniformity in arrangement, in style, in spelling, infolding—all the little mechanical details that contribute to an impression of CHARACTER and INDIVIDUALITY. Definite instructions should be given to correspondents and stenographers so that letters, although written in a dozen different departments, will have a uniformity in appearance. What a book of instructions should contain and how rules can be adopted is described in this chapter
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Just as progressive business houses now aim to have their correspondence uniform in policy and quality, so too, they aim at uniformity in letter appearance—the mechanical production. It is obvious that if the letters sent out by a house are to have character, one style must be adopted and definite rules must be formulated for the guidance of the stenographers. The authorities differ on many points such as the use of capital letters, abbreviations, the use of figures, and so forth, and it is not to be expected that stenographers, trained at different schools and working in different departments, could produce uniformity unless they all follow specific instructions.
And so the more progressive firms have adopted a fixed style and codified certain rules for the guidance of stenographers and typists. In the writing of a letter there are so many points that are entirely a matter of personal taste that a comprehensive rule book touches an almost infinite number of subjects, ranging from an important question of house policy to the proper way of folding the sheet on which the letter is written.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to give a summary of the rules for punctuation and capitalization or to pass judgment on questions of style, but to emphasize the necessity for uniformity in all correspondence that a house sends out, and to call attention to a few of the more common errors that are inexcusable.
As far as the impression created by an individual letter is concerned, it really makes very little difference whether the paragraphs are indented or begin flush with the line margin. But it is important that all the letters sent out by a house follow the same style. A stenographer should not be permitted to use the abbreviation "Co." in one part of her letter and spell out the word "company" in the following paragraph.