What does the letterhead consist of? What types of companies can you come across in the letterhead? How you should write dates?

Letterhead (contains type of company, board of directors, addresses).

Type of companies:

1. Ltd. (limited liability – private limited companies whose shares are not available; Inc. – in the USA)

2. PLC (Public Limited Company – its shares can be bought by the public)

3. & Co (partnership) with limited/unlimited liabilities

4. Son, Sons, Bros, Daughter (with limited/unlimited liabilities)

5. If the company is a joint stock company, the names of the directors will appear on the letterhead.

Date: The date is written below the sender's address, sometimes separated from it by a space. In the case of correspondence with a printed letterhead, it is also usually written on the right-hand side of the page.

The month in the date should not be written in figures as they can be confusing; for example, 11.01.93 means 11^th January 1993 in the UK but 1^st November 1993 in the USA. Nor should you abbreviate the month, e.g. Nov. for November, as it simply looks untidy. It takes a moment to write a date in full, but it can take a lot longer to find a misfiled letter which was put in the wrong file because the date was confusing.

Many firms leave out the abbreviation 'th' after the date, e.g. 24 October instead of 24^th October. Other firms transpose the date and the month, e.g. October 24 instead of 24 October. These are matters of preference, but whichever you choose you should be consistent throughout your correspondence.