Salutations

It’s standard practice to put a salutation on its own line above the first paragraph of body text, with a gap such as a line space between them.

When letters were hand written and space was short, it was common to add a comma at the end of the salutation. In today's word processing environment, we no longer need a comma between the salutation and the text because the line break is sufficient.

For the same reason, you don’t need a comma after your sign-off a the end of a letter or email.

If your reader is an elected official, such as an MP, a judge or a local councillor, follow the principles in our Forms of address entry.

You might use a person’s first name alone when:

• they’re an established customer
• you’re writing an email
• your subject matter is less formal.

For example, if a retailer is emailing loyalty cardholders about an upcoming sale, they’d likely choose a casual greeting.

Just remember that if you’re referring to someone by title, you need to be sure it’s the right one. Opt for ‘Ms’ instead of ‘Mrs’, unless the person has expressed a preference. And be aware that some people may prefer gender-neutral titles such as ‘Mx’.

If you don’t know the name of the person you’re writing to, your best option is to do some research to work it out.

The internet has made it much easier to identify people in different roles within an organisation, particularly through professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.

Addressing someone directly will always be preferable to old-fashioned options like ‘Dear Sir/Madam’.

But if you still have no luck, consider:

• addressing your correspondence to a specific role or team, such as ‘Dear Hiring Manager’ or ‘Dear Complaints Department’
• starting with a more casual greeting, such as ‘Hello’, if it’s appropriate in the context.

As a last resort, you can also use ‘To whom it may concern’ styled in sentence case. This is common in reference letters that will be circulated to more than 1 reader and organisation.