Personal Letters:

Personal letters are formatted like business letters except that the company logo and
name are omitted, of course. Also, omit your name and place your address as the
initial line of the first element. You would use this format, for example, when writing
a cover letter or letter of application to accompany your resume.

personal letters are the most informal, written in the manner of one person speaking to another.
Apart from containing the main elements mentioned above, such letters have no strict rules of
style—not even grammatical rules. Personal letters may be handwritten or typed, but they are
always signed by hand.

Social letters,

which are more formal, include invitations and replies, letters of congratulation, thank-you notes,
and letters of condolence. (Greeting cards are now made to serve all of these functions.) As with
personal correspondence, social letters may be handwritten or typed.

Business letters are probably the most common type. The

uses of a business letter are many: to give one's opinions
to a public official, to place an order with a store, to apply
for a job, to seek admission to a college. Regardless of the
purpose, all business letters are considered formal and
have a standard format.

A direct, written message that is usually sent some distance from one person to
another, or even to a group of persons or an organization, is called a letter. An old
term for letter is “epistle,” from the Greek word epistole, meaning “message.”