Types of written communication (New Addition)

Your phone holds a WhatsApp message from a friend, a college circular about exam forms and an e-mail from the bank about your KYC. All three are written communication, yet no one would mix up their tone or layout. A lawyer's day is the same, only with higher stakes: a letter to a client, a notice to the other side, a memo to a senior, a report to a court-appointed committee. So which type does a given situation actually call for, and what makes each one different?

In two minutes

Written communication comes in recognisable types — formal and informal letters, memos, circulars and notices, reports, e-mails, and condensed forms such as the precis and summary — and each is defined by its purpose, its reader and its layout, so the first skill is to pick the type the situation calls for.

The rest of this chapter

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