How To Write A Good Letter To Pass WAEC And NECO.

Ability to write a good letter is one of the key factors a candidate needs to pass his or her English language in WAEC and NECO examinations.

A letter writing is either formal or informal letter. An informal letter or a friendly letter or a personal letter carries one address at the right corner of the paper and is the type of letter written to friends, relations, parents who are close to you, while a formal letter on the other hand should have two addresses at both right and left corner of the paper, the type written to an organization for employment, letter to an organization or government establishment calling for sitting of projects or calls eradication of menace in a particular area.

Letter writing could be narrative, descriptive, expository or argumentative. So any question in WAEC or NECO on either of the above whether to tell how an event happens, describe or argue should have the following brilliant features:

Address
Good introduction
Body of the letter
Good and simple language or diction
Mechanical accuracy
A good letter conclusion
Address: When you are writing a letter whether formal or informal letter, it must have address or addresses and a date written. Unlike an essay writing, a candidate should note that this is very important in passing WAEC and NECO examinations.
Introduction: Having a good introduction in letter writing is key to passing English language in your WAEC and NECO. You don’t jump into writing on any topic without giving the examiner the insight or central idea of what you are writing on. It shows a focal point and directs the marker or the examiner’s mind towards a good end.
Body of the Letter: This tells the story or describes or argue in details events that happened with good diction or language otherwise referred to as good grammatical structures in sequence, that is, one good point in a paragraph linking the other.
Good and simplified diction: Otherwise referred to as simple and carefully selected words to build up your topic letter. In this wise, a candidate should avoid bombastic words; that is the use of big words that may complicate issues or defeat the whole write up. Employ good English in your explanation and avoid too long sentences to drive home your points or argument.
Mechanical Accuracy: Develop the idea invariably. The problem is that most students shift topics and lose focus within their paragraphs because they do not know how to adequately develop their ideas. They usually know the paragraph needs to be longer, but they don’t know how to expand their idea to fill that length. Indeed a paragraph should be at least half a page long. Good punctuations like coma, semi colon, invited comas, exclamation mark and full stops should be applied appropriately.
A good letter conclusion: A good conclusion or preferred end of any good letter in WAEC and NECO should have an overview of the entire topic, elements of logicality, carefully selected words, brilliant technicalities and a brilliant end.

For instance, Write a letter to your brother living in another country telling him that your father is hospitalized because he was involved in an accident.

This is a good example of an informal letter which is narrative and descriptive.

Introduction: You can start by saying that your father was involved in an accident as he was travelling a commercial bus to the village and is being hospitalized.

In another paragraph which is the body of the letter, you can state that as he was travelling in a commercial bus on that fateful day at about 2pm, one of the tyres got burst, the car swerved to the other side of the road and the bus somersaulted. Thank God however, there was no lose of life and Daddy came out with injuries and was taken to the hospital.

In another paragraph, you state whether he is currently responding to treatment. Daddy has been slow to recovery as a result of the shock and old age inspite of the treatment. However, we pray God in his infinite mercies will make for his quick recovery and would be discharged from the hospital in no distant time.

In conclusion, you try to pacify your brother not to be disturbed by the somewhat news of Daddy state of health and that with God Almighty, he will recover quickly and come out of the hospital soonest.

I promised I will continue to give you updates of Daddy’s improvement in the hospital. Till then, take heart and remain blessed.

Yours sincerely or Yours, Love, Best wishes, Yours ever

Your first name or pet name because the receiver is supposed to know or familiar with.

Write a letter to the Chairman of your Local Government Area of the menace of refuse dump and the urgent needs for evacuation.

This is a formal letter which should have two addresses and a date. The addressee and the address.Your own address at the right hand side and the Local Government Chairman at the left side.

No 26, House 10

Satellite Town, Lagos.

Date:

The Chairman

Ode Local Government Area.

sir,

MENACE OF REFUSE DUMP AND URGENT NEED FOR EVACUATION

A good introduction which should take the central point like I am writing to inform you of the refuse dump which has become a menace in our community and the urgent need for evacuation. The language should be polite and the use of abbreviation of words like can’t wouldn’t should be avoided.

In another paragraph of the body of the letter, you state the reasons for urgent evacuation:

To avoid outbreak of epidemics
The refuse dump serves as security risk as hoodlums could take the advantage of the area to unleash havoc on innocent citizens.
To promote good and healthy environment for wellbeing of the people, there is urgent need for evacuation.

In conclusion, you hope this will be done as quickly as possible to avoid health breakdown in the area. “A stitch in time, they say saves nine”.

I hope this request will be given speedy and favourable answers or response it desires.

Thanks.

Yours faithfully,

Name and signature.

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