Question

Jamie is the head of the sales team at a company. She wishes to write a letter of appreciation to an employee, Tom Hills, who has done exceptionally well in the past few weeks. Which of the following salutations would be appropriate for her letter?
a) Hi Tom!
b) Hello Tom,
c) Dear Mr. Hills,
d) Respected Sir,

Answer 1

Hint:A letter of appreciation is generally written to express praise and adoration. It is a semi-formal letter. We write a semi-formal letter to a person we share a business or a professional relationship with.

Complete answer:
In the given question- We know that Jamie is the head of the sales team at a company. She writes a semi-formal letter to express praise towards Tom Hills, an employee, for his exceptional performance. Hence, the appropriate salutation should be ‘Dear Mr. Hills,’.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘Hi Tom!’ is an incorrect option, because we use ‘hi’ with the ‘first name’ when we share a closer relationship with that person.
Option b- ‘Hello Tom,’ is an incorrect option, because we use ‘hello’ with the ‘first name’ when we share a closer relationship with that person.
Option c- ‘Dear Mr. Hills,’ is the correct option as ‘dear’ reduces the professional tension of the letter and ‘Mr. Hills’ maintains the professional relationship.
Option d- ‘Respected Sir’ is an incorrect option, because ‘respected sir’ is used to indicate a person holding a higher or greater position than self.
So, the correct answer is “Option c”.

Note:
A semi-formal letter acts like a medium of conversation between employees or people sharing professional relationships. The use of ‘dear’ with the ‘surname’ sounds more polite and formal at the same time.