How To Address A Letter

Need to know how to address a letter? Addressing letters properly on the inside as well as the outside insures that the correct recipient gets the letter. Make sure that when you address the envelope, you have good handwriting that's legible. Otherwise, it might not make it to your intended recipient.

You will need:

• Letter paper
• Envelope
• Pen

1. Start out the letter with the right recipient title. If you’re addressing a woman or man much older than you (or of a higher authority), write Mr., Mrs. or Ms. Always follow the name with a comma.
2. Address a letter envelope before actually stuffing the letter into the envelope. Otherwise you’ll end up making funny impressions with the pen over top of the letter paper.
3. Write the recipient’s title at the middle of the page. Leave enough space on all sides to give yourself some room to breathe, or you’ll run right off the envelope. That just looks amateur.
4. Address a letter with the actual address on the second line. Put the recipient’s address on the second line, lining up both first letters of each line. You don’t want it to look tacky now, do you?
5. Place the city, state and zip code on the third line. You didn’t really think you’d get away with addressing a letter in only two lines, did you? Put a comma in between the city and state. Always abbreviate the state with its two-letter abbreviation.
6. Put a return address at the top left of the envelope. That is, of course, unless you don’t want the recipient to know it’s from you, you sneaky thing. Don’t leave it off just because you’re feeling lazy. In the event that the letter doesn’t get delivered, you want the post office to return it to the right person.