How to Do Business by Letter, and Training Course in Conversational English
A textbook by Sherwin Cody, published by his School of English in Chicago; this copy is the sixteenth edition, "75 Thousand", with a 1908 copyright.
What it is
A textbook by Sherwin Cody, published by his School of English in Chicago; this copy is the sixteenth edition, "75 Thousand", with a 1908 copyright. It teaches business letters as "talks on paper" over twenty-three chapters, each built on numbered model letters with word counts, often a poor version beside a rewrite, plus running notes on grammar and punctuation. Early chapters cover dates, salutations and closes, job applications, orders, collection letters in three rising steps, and letters to ladies. Later chapters turn to selling: when to write a long letter (to a farmer, an angry customer) and a short one (to a busy man), soothing complaint letters, condensing copy for advertisements, follow-up letters, one-sentence display paragraphs, and five steps of salesmanship by letter. Many examples are Cody's own mail-order letters for the Sheldon System, built on the phrase "Letters that Pull". It closes with post office rules and bookkeeping exercises.
Why read it now
The core advice holds. Write as you would talk, open from the customer's desire rather than your product, prove every claim because readers assume advertisers lie, and end by telling the reader exactly what to do. Plain-language research agrees: Nielsen Norman Group's usability studies find that short sentences and common words raise comprehension, even among expert readers. The long-versus-short list is useful because it ties length to the reader's state, not to a fixed rule. His report that the phrase "Letters that Pull" doubled the business from a letter is an early case for testing headlines. What has dated: most of the etiquette, the chapter on letters to ladies with its separate courtesy rules, postal rates corrected to 1911, and the habit of stacking claims and testimonials without figures a reader can check. Use it on your WhatsApp and email templates: rewrite each one as if spoken to a named customer, add one piece of proof, and end with one clear next step.
Passages worth keeping
Business letter writing is not a study of forms and usages. It is rather a study of human nature and "how to use words so as to make people do things."
كتابة الرسائل التجارية ليست حفظًا للقوالب، بل فهم للناس واستعمال للكلمات يدفعهم إلى الفعل.
Never write a longer letter than you have good reason to believe will be read all through.
طول الرسالة يُقاس بما سيقرؤه المتلقي فعلًا، لا بما تريد أنت أن تقوله.
The colloquial phrase "Letters that Pull" (which would not be permitted in literary composition) was a great discovery, and doubled the business brought by the first letter.
عبارة دارجة قريبة من لغة القارئ ضاعفت نتائج الرسالة، فالكلام المألوف قد يبيع أكثر من العبارة الأدبية المتكلفة.
Third, do something to prove your statements, for the ordinary man thinks that most salesmen and advertisers are liars, and proof is necessary to give him confidence.
القارئ يبدأ بالشك في كل بائع ومعلن، فالدليل شرط لكسب ثقته وليس زينة للرسالة.
Fifth, tell him just exactly what you want him to do, as it were placing an order blank under his hand, giving him a pen, and telling him to write his name there.
اختم الرسالة بطلب واضح ومحدد، كأنك تضع النموذج والقلم أمام العميل وتدله على مكان التوقيع.
What it teaches best
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