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When To Say Thank You In Writing
Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett
When I first started tracking the information preferences of people visiting my Writing Help Central Web site I was surprised to find how many folks were seeking information on how to write thank you letters. In fact, “thank you letter” information and sample templates are the fifth ranked destinations at that Web site.
However, I caution you to be careful if you conduct a “thank you letter” keyword search using an engine such as google or yahoo. Those top 10 or 20 search results will definitely give you the wrong idea about thank you letters in the broad sense. Looking at those results alone you’ll find that the vast majority of “so-called experts” seem to think that there is essentially only one kind of thank you letter – one written after a job interview.
However, that is just not the case – by a long shot. In fact, there are many different types of thank you letters.
The purpose of this article is to tell you the whole story on when to write “thank you letters”, as they apply to a wide variety of situations — both personal and business…
In reality, that common belief that “thank you letters” are mostly employment-related, is a very narrow view that fails to recognize the literally dozens of real-life situations for which these letters are often warranted. I believe that this proliferation of references to “employment-related” thank you letters is simply a reflection of the massive number of Web-based businesses involved in the online career and job hunting services industry.
WHEN TO SAY THANK YOU IN WRITING
The purpose of a thank you letter is self-explanatory. Write one when you want to formally thank a person, company or institution for something they have done for you or your organization; normally, something which you consider to be out of the ordinary.
Simply receiving a contracted service as requested does not normally warrant a formal thank you. However, service provided to you above and beyond your normal expectations can often call for a special thank you letter. Normally, it should be a clear case of “above and beyond the call of duty”, as the saying goes.
And yes, thank you letters can also be important follow-up mechanisms in certain employment-related situations.
Generally speaking, there are two main types of thank you letters — business thank you letters and personal thank you letters.
Business Thank You Letters
There are many situations in business that can warrant a thank you letter. Here are a few generic examples of thank you letter situations for businesses and institutions:
• Appreciation for any type of special consideration extended by another organization.
• Thanking a speaker for a presentation at an annual board meeting.
• Customer appreciation letters – thanking them for their patronage.
• Thank you letters to employees for exceptional service or performance.
• Thanks to an individual or organization for a customer referral.
• Commendations to volunteer service workers for their personal contributions.
These are just a few typical examples. IÂ’m sure you can think of many more situations that might demand a thank you letter from a business or institution.
Personal Thank You Letters
As with business situations, there are many instances in day-to-day life that can warrant a formal thank you letter. Following are a few typical situations that often require a personal thank you letter:
• As a follow-up after a job interview and/or job offer.
• To a company or institution in appreciation for exceptional customer service.
• Letter of appreciation to a teacher for a positive influence on your child.
• To friends and/or neighbors for their exceptional support during a difficult period.
• Thanks to a service club or agency for support given to your family.
• Social occasion thank yous, for a wide variety of social situations.
Again these are just examples. New situations similar to these arise on a regular basis in our daily lives that call for a formal thank you letter.
Sending thank you letters when appropriate is important in both business and personal life. Individuals and companies that do not send thank you letters are seen as ungracious and perhaps not worthy of future good deeds or special treatment.
So, whenever itÂ’s warranted, make sure you send an appropriate thank you letter. Invariably, thank you letters are very well received and appreciated by recipients, and the senderÂ’s reputation is generally enhanced in their eyes.
BONUS : Where Are A Novelist's Characters Born?
Have you ever been haunted by a character, one who inhabits your imagination for days, months or years? Acquiring a life of his own, he leaps from the page and burrows inside us.
Think of DickensÂ’ Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or ShakespeareÂ’s King Lear or Macbeth? And then, of course, more recently, Hannibal Lector bursts from the mind of the novelist Thomas Harris and frightens us from the screen in the movie The Silence of the Lambs
Where did these characters come from? And what makes them so vivid that we carry them in our psyches for years? ItÂ’s not enough to say that they arise from the imagination of their creators.
Maybe there is a clue in the thoughts of one of my favorite authors, Robertson Davies. (Deptford Trilogy, The Cornish Trilogy)
“Unless the writing rises from the only true fountain of inspiration—and the Unconscious has shown itself to be not timely, but timeless—it will not be first rate.”
As writers, we may plot the life and actions of a character to our heartÂ’s content. We may apply intellectual reason to the creation and birth of a character, but it will be to no avail. Because, when it comes right down to it, the only thing that matters is where that character comes from within the writer. If we try to create him by rational thought alone, he is almost certain to fall flat and be easily forgotten.
So whatÂ’s so special about the unconscious mind? ThatÂ’s where creative psychic energy resides. According to Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, the artist (writer) has unusual access to the realms of the subconscious and all the creative energy it contains. Although we are usually unaware of it, our unconscious dream life continues even when we are going about our daily business. Those fantasies float up unbidden to the surface of the conscious mind of creative writers or artists. When he or she is doing some mundane task like shopping, one of those haunting characters may be born right in the aisle between the cereal and the detergent.
Does that writer rush home and write down everything that has emerged from the unconscious and then present it to the world as art? Hardly. That’s only the beginning. She may go deeper into the realms of the collective unconscious – a sort of vast and completely disorganized library, which contains all the images, thoughts and energies Of all mankind from time immemorial. Plenty of material there to shape characters who live on in us! They stay with us because they are ‘made’ of ancient material we all share as human beings.
IÂ’ve sometimes been asked how could you possibly create such a character as The Florist in Conduct in Question? Such a question is usually accompanied by an uneasy sidelong glance. Perhaps IÂ’m still trying to justify myself.
In Conduct in Question, the first in the Osgoode Trilogy, we meet the Florist, a sadistic murderer with an artistic flair, who believes he is called to judge the worthiness of his victims. When I was out for a walk on a beautiful spring day, I asked myself, what sort of person do I fear most? I soon realized it was of someone who took extreme pleasure in doing physical or mental harm to another. A joyful sadist if you like. But how to make him grow beyond a cardboard devil, who might be easily dismissed or laughed at?
To create a real devil, I think you must give him real human characteristics. Then we cannot deny he is a part of us. The Florist senses a lack of compassion within himself. Longing for it, he addresses his mother. I know what the word compassion means. But what does it feel like? Miraculously, even the Florist has a fleeting moment of redemption, when he does experience compassion. Loving art, The Florist labors to create the lyrical lines of the painter Matisse, as he carves human flesh. He takes his task of judging the worthiness of his victims with utmost seriousness. Sound mad enough a Devil for you? But with these human touches, he cannot be so easily dismissed.
Back to Robertson Davies who writes,
“But I know that there is one thing he (the Devil) is: he is a personal element in everybody’s nature, and he may be defined as everything that a man or woman condemns, detests, and is certain that he or she is not.
Is that the answer? The Devil is in all of us to one degree or another. Most of us succeed in keeping him under wraps in the unconscious depths. But we cannot deny he is there. Have a look at Conduct in Question and see the results of one writerÂ’s attempt to capture him from down below and put him on the page.
Have you ever been haunted by a character, one who inhabits your imagination for days, months or years? Acquiring a life of his own, he leaps from the page and burrows inside us.
Think of DickensÂ’ Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or ShakespeareÂ’s King Lear or Macbeth? And then, of course, more recently, Hannibal Lector bursts from the mind of the novelist Thomas Harris and frightens us from the screen in the movie The Silence of the Lambs
Where did these characters come from? And what makes them so vivid that we carry them in our psyches for years? ItÂ’s not enough to say that they arise from the imagination of their creators.
Maybe there is a clue in the thoughts of one of my favorite authors, Robertson Davies. (Deptford Trilogy, The Cornish Trilogy)
“Unless the writing rises from the only true fountain of inspiration—and the Unconscious has shown itself to be not timely, but timeless—it will not be first rate.”
As writers, we may plot the life and actions of a character to our heartÂ’s content. We may apply intellectual reason to the creation and birth of a character, but it will be to no avail. Because, when it comes right down to it, the only thing that matters is where that character comes from within the writer. If we try to create him by rational thought alone, he is almost certain to fall flat and be easily forgotten.
So whatÂ’s so special about the unconscious mind? ThatÂ’s where creative psychic energy resides. According to Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, the artist (writer) has unusual access to the realms of the subconscious and all the creative energy it contains. Although we are usually unaware of it, our unconscious dream life continues even when we are going about our daily business. Those fantasies float up unbidden to the surface of the conscious mind of creative writers or artists. When he or she is doing some mundane task like shopping, one of those haunting characters may be born right in the aisle between the cereal and the detergent.
Does that writer rush home and write down everything that has emerged from the unconscious and then present it to the world as art? Hardly. That’s only the beginning. She may go deeper into the realms of the collective unconscious – a sort of vast and completely disorganized library, which contains all the images, thoughts and energies Of all mankind from time immemorial. Plenty of material there to shape characters who live on in us! They stay with us because they are ‘made’ of ancient material we all share as human beings.
IÂ’ve sometimes been asked how could you possibly create such a character as The Florist in Conduct in Question? Such a question is usually accompanied by an uneasy sidelong glance. Perhaps IÂ’m still trying to justify myself.
In Conduct in Question, the first in the Osgoode Trilogy, we meet the Florist, a sadistic murderer with an artistic flair, who believes he is called to judge the worthiness of his victims. When I was out for a walk on a beautiful spring day, I asked myself, what sort of person do I fear most? I soon realized it was of someone who took extreme pleasure in doing physical or mental harm to another. A joyful sadist if you like. But how to make him grow beyond a cardboard devil, who might be easily dismissed or laughed at?
To create a real devil, I think you must give him real human characteristics. Then we cannot deny he is a part of us. The Florist senses a lack of compassion within himself. Longing for it, he addresses his mother. I know what the word compassion means. But what does it feel like? Miraculously, even the Florist has a fleeting moment of redemption, when he does experience compassion. Loving art, The Florist labors to create the lyrical lines of the painter Matisse, as he carves human flesh. He takes his task of judging the worthiness of his victims with utmost seriousness. Sound mad enough a Devil for you? But with these human touches, he cannot be so easily dismissed.
Back to Robertson Davies who writes,
“But I know that there is one thing he (the Devil) is: he is a personal element in everybody’s nature, and he may be defined as everything that a man or woman condemns, detests, and is certain that he or she is not.
Is that the answer? The Devil is in all of us to one degree or another. Most of us succeed in keeping him under wraps in the unconscious depths. But we cannot deny he is there. Have a look at Conduct in Question and see the results of one writerÂ’s attempt to capture him from down below and put him on the page.
