People have a tendency to avoid tasks for one of two reasons: 1) they find the task unpleasant or 2) they fear or know they are bad at it. Letter writing can fall into either of these two categories. The category you can do something to change, however, is the second one. Become aware of common mistakes people make when writing letters and you can improve your letter writing skills.

Mistake #1: Not identifying the purpose of the letter.

Whether your letter is for business or personal communications, you should state in the beginning what the letter is about. For example, you are requesting a refund for a broken product or you are following up on a proposal. Even if you are just "saying hello" to Aunt Jane, state the purpose of your letter early on. That way Aunt Jane will know to read with enjoyment as you tell her the latest events in your life, or whether to read fervently to the end for the delivery of some horrible bad news. When you don't identify the purpose for your writing, the recipient may not place the proper priority or urgency to your letter or, in the case of business, may direct it to the wrong department thus delaying your refund or prolonging a decision.

Mistake #2: Not getting to the point.

Just as when you don't identify the purpose for your letter, not getting to the point risks having the recipient miss the intended message entirely. If you're really writing to resolve a specific problem, don't spend three paragraphs apologizing in advance or talking about unrelated issues. Also known as disorganization, not getting to the point turns a bad letter into a missed opportunity.

Mistake #3: Redundancy.

There are several types of redundancy, and all of them are equally unnecessary. The first, and easiest to identify, is using the same word more than once in the same sentence or more than three times in the same paragraph. An example is "She added a personal touch to the personal letter she wrote." The second type of redundancy that many writers miss in their own writing is repeating the same idea in different words: "Her message was effective because it was personal. The personal nature of her letter made her message effective." This message is not effective  it's redundant.

Mistake #4: Using unfamiliar acronyms, abbreviations or technical language.

Don't assume your audience knows all the abbreviations, lingo and acronyms that you know. An acronym is word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as CHOP for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The same letters can stand for different organizations or meanings depending on where the person lives or other frame of reference. Or they simply may not know what it stands for. The same goes for technical language or jargon specific to a given profession, industry or interest group and for abbreviations beyond the basic Mr./Ms. and etc. And it's probably okay to use OK.

Mistake #5: Using ambiguous or confusing words.

Similar to avoiding acronyms try to choose words with clear meaning, especially if your letter is attempting to resolve a conflict. Ambiguous subjects or misplaced descriptive phrases can totally change the intended meaning of your words. If you are having trouble identifying your own ambiguity, try writing your major points in very simple subject-verb-object format. Even if it feels childish, this exercise will actually spell out for you the key players and actions you want to communicate. You can fill in details and modify the sentence structure  after you are clear about what you need to say.

Mistake #6: Monotonous sentence structure.

Counterbalance to mistake #5, you don't want to bore your audience to sleep either. Writing every sentence in the same exact structure and length is amateurish and disruptive to the flow of the letter. Vary sentence length and alter noun-verb order to add interest to your message.

Mistake #7: Inconsistency.

Variety, however, should not be confused with inconsistency. There are two things that generally should not vary within a sentence or even within your letter: person and tense. Person refers to first (me, I, we), second (you) and third (he, them, etc.). Tense pertains to verbs or action happening in the past, present or future. Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule, such as occasions where "I" am telling "you" how "I" feel. Inconsistency applies to technique as well as meaning. If you are sending mixed messages, the only sure outcome of your letter is confusion.

Mistake #8: Fragments, run-on sentences and missing or incorrect punctuation.

A lot of people have heard of a fragment but don't recognize it when they write one. A fragment is simply not a complete sentence. Commonly used fragments are noun phrases (the man with the short beard and navy jacket), verb phrases (walking through the park and over the hill), and prepositional phrases (on a tree stump within the national park reserve). Run-on sentences have the opposite problem: they are defined as two complete sentences not separated with proper punctuation such as a period, comma-and, colon, or semi-colon. Punctuation deserves an article of its own, but common problem areas are possessive pronouns vs. contractions ("its" is the correct possessive pronoun, while "it's" is a contraction for "it is"), hyphen vs. dash (a hyphen combines two words into one whereas a dash is used to separate words to distinguish multiple ideas or phrases), and misplaced commas. Items in a series should have a comma after each item. A comma before the word "and" at the end of the series is optional, but do not ever use a comma after the word "and". That is a misplaced comma.

Mistake #9: Bad spelling and misused words.

It ought to go without saying; misspelled words are a common mistake in letter writing. Not only does bad spelling make you look unprofessional, it also gives the reader the impression that you don't know what you are talking about. If they don't believe you, your communication is ineffective. If you are using a computer, be sure to run a spelling and grammar check at least once. Do not, however, rely on spell check alone. You should know by now, software programs do not identify correctly spelled words that are used incorrectly in the context of the sentence. A notorious example is the transposition of the words "from" and "form". Also, most software does not recognize proper names or some technical or industry-specific terminology. If you are not paying attention, your software editor may change a word you spelled correctly to something completely different -- while you are not looking!

Mistake #10: Not reading it over before you send it.

The last example is an excellent reason to be sure to re-read your letter before sending it to anyone. Even if you think your letter is free of human error (which would be rare!), your letter may have been corrupted by computer error or unintentional (and sometimes misfortunate) auto-formatting. No matter what, read your letter through from beginning to end at least one time.

Keep an eye out for all the common mistakes above, and make sure you have thoroughly supported your points.

Follow these few strands of advice and you are sure to produce a well-written letter that will communicate the message you intend to convey and hopefully, achieve the results you desire.

Shawn Thomas is a freelance writer who writes about writing rules and grammar, letter writing and etiquette, often focusing on specific products used in writing such as stationery. http://www.americanstationery.com/