Example Inquiry Letter--Hardware Support for Red Hat Linux (Annotations)


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Inquiry letter. This writer is seeking information on certain aspects of an operating system. this is a solicited inquiry in that it is addressed to a company that seeks customers and their business.

Heading. The heading portion of a business letter includes the writer's address and date. For traditional business letters, you don't normally include your name in the heading.

Inside address. The inside address provides the full name, title, and address of the recipient of the letter. In this letter, the writer has addressed the name of a department, "Technical Support."

Salutation. In this portion of the letter, the writer uses the same name as he did 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 inquiry letter, the writer very quickly states the purpose of the letter, refers to a contact (how he heard about the product), and establishers a need for the information he is requesting.

Other sources. In this second paragraph, before stating his actual questions, the writer indicates that he has attempted to find the information he is requesting through other sources�but has not succeeded. It's important not to ask for information that is easily obtained from readily available sources.

Need. The writer has already establish his need for the product�he needs to find out if the product will meet his needs.

Specific inquiries. Notice that this writer is asking very specific questions whose answers are probably not available from any source other than those who are actually using the system on a day-to-day basis. Notice too that the questions are numbered which should make it easier for the recipient to answer them.

Motivation. In practically any inquiry letter, it is a good idea to provide some indirect motivation as to why the recipients should want to help you with your inquiry. In this letter, the writer indicates in several places that a purchase decision depends on getting the information he is requesting. And the fact that he says nice things about the product makes the likelihood of purchase just that more likely�that is, if he can get the information he needs.

Conclusion. The last paragraph provides the recipients with several ways they can respond. E-mail is probably the most likely�in fact, the writer of this letter could have used e-mail to delivery this inquiry as well.



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