A letter of Advice

When we have personal problems, we may want to discuss them with several
people: members of our family, friends, teachers, work colleagues, professional
counsellors, experts on radio or TV programmes or an agony aunt in a magazine
or newspaper.

Depending on the person we are giving advice to, the register will be more
formal or informal.

This is a typical task we may have to do when writing a letter of advice:

You work as an agony aunt in a local newspaper and have received the
letter below from a reader. Write a reply letter in 160-180 words giving
Jack advice. Do not write any postal addresses.

"I feel really lonely and unhappy because Im finding it impossible to make
friends. When I go to parties, I always end up by myself.
I have had friends some quite good ones- but recently I seem to have been
rather unlucky. People seem to like me at first, but after a while, they lose
interest. They stop phoning and always seem to have excuses for not seeing
me.
I thought things would improve as I got older, but that doesnt seem to be
happening. Im 34 years old and I live on my own.
Thank you in advance for your attention.
Regards,
Jack"

A typical layout in this kind of letter would be:

Paragraph 1: INTRODUCTION
- Thanks for letter / make the purpose of the letter clear /express
understanding of the problem

Paragraph 2/3: MAIN BODY
- Suggestions + reasons (give your advice to help solve the problem)

Paragraph 4: CONCLUSION
- Closing remarks. Hope everything will be fine.


In addition to polite formulas, you will have to include a number of structures
to give advice:

Formal structures to give advice:
-My suggestion is / would be to ...
-You should/ought to ...
-If I were in your position, I would ...
-I strongly recommend that
-I would advise you to

Informal structures to give advice:
- First of all, its very important you
- What I'd suggest is that you ...
- If I were you, I'd ...
- If I were in your shoes, Id ...
- Why don't you ...?
- How about ...?
- You could / might even ...
- The best advice I can give you is
- It would/might be a good idea to

Opening remarks
- I am writing in reply to you letter asking for advice about (formal)
- I just got your letter and was really sorry to hear about your problem.
(informal)
- Having read your problem in
- I was sorry to read about your problem

Closing remarks
- To sum up, / Summing up,
- To conclude, /Concluding
- Finally, Im sure that if you follow my advice, you will see that everything will
work out.
- Good luck.
- I hope this will be of help. (formal)
- I would very much like to know if this was helpful. (formal)
- Hope this has helped. (informal)
- Let me know what happens. (informal)





As with any type of writing task, always remember:

Brainstorm for ideas before you start writing and choose those which
can best help you to do the task well and show your grasp of English.
Plan the paragraph layout.
Write the first draft of your letter.
Write the final version of your letter.