Reminder Letters

Sample Reminder Letters

As the name suggests, this type of letter serves to remind an individual, organization or some other entity of an event of interest to them . . . an outstanding or overdue payment . . . a subscription/membership which is soon to expire . . . a deadline . . . and the like.

The reminder letter is most often used by departments such as admissions, subscriptions/membership, administration, accounts and customer service.

The reminder letter may be routine (like one alerting a prospective student to an impending submission deadline) or it may be the last letter someone—a credit card defaulter, for example-would receive reminding them of their obligation before more stringent action is taken against them.

If you do have to write a letter reminding someone of their obligation, remember to keep emotion out of it. The individual in question may simply have forgotten about their obligation or may be suffering from some hardship which you are unaware of.

The biggest advantage of a reminder letter is that it documents the initiative you took to remind someone of their obligation. If the issue is, for example, dragged all the way to court, the rejection letter you wrote may even help swing the verdict in your favor.

[Date]

[Name]
[Address]

Dear [Ms./Mrs./Mr. Last name],

In ancient India, a pupil who missed a deadline would be cursed by his guru.

Fortunately, we live in the 21st century!

Your thesis submission is due October 28. If you fail to submit it on or before the due date, your thesis mentor won't curse you but will probably wonder why you failed to make the deadline.

Each year, each of our mentors takes 27 doctorate students under their wings. Of the 27, nearly half on average fail to submit their thesis on time.

The #1 reason for not making the deadline is lack of planning.

We sincerely hope you planned well and are now almost ready to submit your thesis paper.

Our records tell us the working title of your paper is Spectrum Analysis and Data Ranging Technology: A Cross-sectional Investigation of Tri-band Integers.

We must congratulate you on choosing a challenging subject and not playing safe.

That said, we must also warn you that the university does not tolerate sloppy, plagiarized, half-baked, incomplete and scientifically invalid positions your paper may unwittingly take.

We advise you to review your paper thoroughly before submitting it.

We do not wish you merely impress us. Rather, we also hope you communicate your own unique take and your own academic personality through your thesis.