Letter to the Editor About Water Logging in Your Area

A letter to the editor is formal, so it opens with the editor's designation and the paper's address, uses "Sir" as the salutation, and asks in its first line for space in the columns. State the problem with specifics — which roads, how deep, how long it lasts — say what it costs residents, and ask the authorities to act.

The question: Write a letter to the editor of a daily newspaper about water logging in your area.

The format

Heading — the editor’s designation and address

A letter to the editor is formal, so it begins with the receiver rather than the sender. Write The Editor, then the name of the newspaper, then its address, each on its own line at the left margin. Your own address is not written at the top; it goes at the very end, under your name.

• Line 1: The Editor
• Line 2: the newspaper — The Daily Star, Prothom Alo
• Line 3: its address — 64–65 Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Dhaka
• Then the date, on its own line.

Subject line

Formal letters carry a subject, written after the salutation or just before it, naming the matter in a few words: Subject: Water logging in Rampura. It is a mark on its own and it takes five seconds to write, so never leave it out.

Salutation and opening request

The salutation is Sir or Sir/Madam, never Dear Sir in this letter and never a name. The first sentence is a fixed request for space: I shall be grateful if you kindly publish the following in the letters column of your daily. Boards expect this sentence, and its absence is noticed.

Body — problem, effect, request

Three paragraphs, each with one job. State the problem with specifics — which streets, how deep, how long it lasts. Describe what it costs the people who live there. Then ask a named authority to act.

• Be specific: a named road is worth more than “our area”.
• Give consequences a stranger would care about — health, schooling, work, ambulances.
• Name who should act: the city corporation, WASA, the local council.
• Keep your own feelings out of it; a formal letter argues from facts.

Subscription and signature

Close with Yours faithfully, then your name, then your address. Yours sincerely is for a letter to someone you have named; Yours ever is informal and wrong here. Many scripts lose a mark on this line alone.

Model answer

Model answer (about 200 words)

The Editor

The Daily Star

64–65 Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Dhaka

5 September 2026

Subject: Water logging on the roads of Rampura

Sir,

I shall be grateful if you kindly publish the following in the letters column of your daily so that the attention of the authorities may be drawn to it.

For the last three monsoons, the stretch of Rampura Main Road between the bridge and the DIT Road junction has gone under water after any rainfall of more than an hour. The water stands knee-deep for six to eight hours and does not drain because the roadside drains have been choked with construction waste since the drainage work of 2023 was left unfinished.

The cost falls on ordinary people. Shops along that stretch close for the day. Children from the two schools nearby wade through water that carries sewage with it, and cases of skin disease and fever rise every year at this time. Rickshaws double their fares, and on two occasions this year an ambulance could not get through and had to turn back.

I therefore request the Dhaka South City Corporation and Dhaka WASA to clear and repair the drains on this stretch before the next monsoon. The work is neither large nor expensive; it has simply been left undone.

Yours faithfully,

Md Sabbir Hossain

Rampura, Dhaka

What earns and loses marks

• Name the road, the junction and the authority. A letter that says “our area suffers from water logging” could be about anywhere and reads as an exercise rather than a complaint.
• Keep the tone measured. Anger weakens a formal letter; a calm account of an ambulance turning back is far more damaging than an outburst.
• Three body paragraphs is the right length — problem, effect, request. A fourth almost always repeats one of the first three.
• Do not write your own address at the top; in this format it belongs under your signature.
• 🚨 Use Yours faithfully with Sir. That pairing is fixed, and Yours sincerely after Sir is a straightforward error.

Mistakes to avoid

• ✗ Dear Sir, ✓ Sir, — a letter to the editor uses the bare formal salutation
• ✗ Yours sincerely, ✓ Yours faithfully, — sincerely is for a named recipient
• ✗ Our area is going under water and we are suffering a lot. ✓ The stretch between the bridge and the DIT Road junction goes under water after any rainfall of more than an hour.