Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street Oxford 0X2 6DP Oxford New York Note Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires The companies, organizations and people Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam mentioned in the specimen letters and Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi documents in this book are entirely fictitious, Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City and any similarity with actual companies, Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sдo Paulo Shanghai organizations or people is coincidental. Sinqapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw M r K ' Acknowledgements and associated companies in The Publishers and Author are grateful to the Berlin Ibadan following for permission to reproduce the documents on the pages quoted: Barclays Oxford and Oxford English are trade marks of Bank International Ltd (pp. 152, 155); British Oxford University Press. Airways (p. 191); Overseas Containers Ltd. (p. 209); Lloyd's of London (p. 230); the ISBN 0 19 457206 4 London Chamber of Commerce and Industry © Oxford University Press, 1992 (p. 210). First published 1984 Second edition 1992 Eleventh impression 2001 No unauthorized photocopying All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Oxford University Press. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Printed in Hong Kong Introduction 1 Structure and presentation 1 2 Content and style 13 3 Enquiries 23 4 Replies and quotations 35 5 Orders 51 6 Payment 67 7 Complaints and adjustments 91 8 Credit 111 9 Banking 133 10 Agents and agencies 163 11 Transportation and shipping 181 12 Insurance 219 13 Electronic correspondence 239 14 Miscellaneous correspondence 251 15 In-company communications 259 16 Personnel appointments 275 Index 291