How to End a Letter

How to properly end a letter? Check out the professional letter endings here.

You probably know that you should not end a letter to a close family the same way you'd send one to your manager. Each different phrase has subtle connotations attached to it that can shape your recipient's reaction. To understand how to end a letter, look at the following goodbye phrases and the situations in which they should be used.

Letter format:

Short introduction paragraph - indicate that the recipient’s employment with the company is terminated. Either indicate it is immediate or give a specific date.
Provide a list of reasons for the termination. These reasons may be related to their performance or related to the state of the business.
Reference any prior efforts to help the individual to improve their performance or warnings about the need to improve performance.
Provide information on how they should handle any company items such as keys, badges, or equipment.
Provide details about any benefits or compensation that may be provided.
This may include help-seeking other employment, severance pay or insurance extensions.
Close the letter. If the separation is due to the employee’s performance, indicate your regret but that you had to make this decision.
If termination was a result of company issues, indicate your regret and willingness to help in any way.

Sample letter endings:

Sincerely (or sincerely yours)
Best (or all the best, all best, or best wishes)
Best regards
Speak to you soon
Thanks
No sign-off
Cheers
With love
XXX
Yours truly
Take care
Your friend

Besides the closing phrases, there is more to understanding how to end a letter than just the sign-offs. For example, you might like to understand how to punctuate your sign-off, what to include in your signature, or what P.S. stands for at the end of a letter or email. This information is also disclosed in this How to and a letter template.

As you may know, there are in general 3 popular modern business letter formats, which are: fully block format, modified block format, and semi-block format. Another commonly used letter format is known as the modified block format, in which the body of the letter and the sender's and recipient's addresses are left justified and single-spaced. However, the difference with a Block format, is that in Modified Block format, the date and closing, have a tab to the center point of the letter, and that is where you begin to type. It is more suitable to use this format on less formal occasions.

Professional Letter Formats:

Block Letter Format

The most common layout of a professional business letter is known as Block Format (or ‘Full block’). It is the easiest format to use and simplest to set up in your word processing program. Using this format, the entire letter from beginning to the end of the letter, including your contact information, the date, the employer’s contact information, the body of the letter, and the greeting and closing, signature, is all left-justified. Also, in block format, the content on the page is single-spaced, except for a double space between each paragraph (as well as space above and below the date, above and below the salutation and signature). This gives a clean and professional look to your letter. The block format is perfect for a cover letter created to accompany a resume as part of a job application. Keep reading to learn more about block format cover letters and review examples and templates.

Modified Block Format

Another commonly used letter format is known as the modified block format, in which the body of the letter and the sender's and recipient's addresses are left justified and single-spaced. However, the difference with a Block format, is that in Modified Block format, the date and closing, have a tab to the center point of the letter, and that is where you begin to type. It is more suitable to use this format on less formal occasions.

Semi-Block Format

The last and less commonly used letter style is the Semi-Block format. It is like the modified block style except that each paragraph is indented instead of left-justified. Semi-block letters are like 'Modified block letters, with the exception the paragraphs are indented. Modified semi-block business letters are considered a little less formal than full block letters.

Therefore, when formatting your letter, make sure to use this business letter format template to ensure you structure and communicate in a professional. Feel free to download this intuitive template that is available in several kinds of formats or try any other of our basic or advanced templates, forms, or documents. Do not try to reinvent the wheel every time you are facing a challenge. Consider learning from others that have gone through the same challenge before you.

Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Format

Academic writing requires the author to support their arguments with reference to other published work or experimental results/findings. The MLA style is a widely used referencing system to help you achieve these objectives. A reference system will perform three essential tasks:

Enable you to acknowledge other authors' ideas (avoid plagiarism).
Enable a reader to quickly locate the source of the material you refer to so they can consult it if they wish.
Indicate to the reader the scope and depth of your research.

Download this Letter ending format for your reference!

DISCLAIMER
Nothing on this site shall be considered legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is established.

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