Sample 2 of an informal letter
source: http://www.uni-koblenz.de/anglistik/subjects/praxis/wri/models/informal.html

7 May 2001

Dear Kelly,

          Thank you very much for your last letter. It was interesting to read about your holidays in Greece.

          I´ve also been on vacation recently. Perhaps you remember that I spent my last summer in New York to improve my English, and so I decided to visit my friends over there. We had a great time; however, on the last day something unpleasant happened to me. As I drove through Queens on Ocean Boulevard, suddenly there was an enormous bang in the back and the car began to veer. For a couple of seconds, which appeared like hours to me, I lost control over the automobile, but finally I was able to stop the car just a few inches in front of a hydrant. After having taken a deep breath I got out of the vehicle and saw that my back wheel had exploded. As you can imagine, I wasn´t very pleased because the car was only rented. Fortunately a handsome young man on a bike came by, stopped and offered to help me. He changed the wheel, which was very kind of him. To thank him I invited him for a cup of coffee at Star Bucks, my favourite coffee shop. What can I say, it was very nice¡K

          By the way he´s going to visit me next month, so you can also get to know him. Anyway, it was the sweetest puncture of my whole life.

          Well, that´s all for now. I´m looking forward to hearing from you.

             Love,

                             Susanne

P.S. Last week I broke up with my boy-friend Holger, who was getting on my nerves anyway.

¡@
Analysis

5 reasons why this is a good letter:

2)    The writer used the right pattern for the date (date - month (written out) - year) and the right salutation,  indented the paragraphs and began the letter with a capital letter.

3)    The writer used the commas correctly e.g. in sentence 6 (introductory dependent clause), in sentence 7 (non-defining relative clauses are set off by commas), and in sentence 10 (use of the comma to separate items in a series).

4)    The writer used contractions (e.g. ¡§I´ve",¡§he´s going to visit¡¨) which is always a good sign for informal language.

5)    The writer capitalised names of cities (¡§New York¡¨, ¡§Queens¡¨), streets (¡§Ocean Boulevard¡¨) and cafes (¡§Star Bucks¡¨).

6)    In sentence 8 the writer didn't let the modifier dangle. (¡§After having taken a deep breath I¡K¡¨)