How to Make an Excuse Letter

Making an excuse letter to get you off the hook should be easy. We usually need excuse letters at school or at work, just to get things officially on the record that for that certain day you were either tardy or absent.

So how does one make an effective or believable excuse letter? By default, your teacher, boss or HR manager are born skeptical. Most excuses are not easy to pass off especially if they are too farfetched. Yeah, what are the odds you got abducted by aliens that day?

So the first rule to keep in mind in making your excuse letter is to be HONEST. That should be plain and simple enough. You're late because the traffic was real bad. Just own up to it! It'll make things easier for you. But alas! Sometimes the truth is just plain terrible and it would reflect badly on your reputation if word ever gets out. Like this tardy and lame excuse -

I was late because I got so drunk last night that I overslept, and spent more time at the doughnut shop trying to get rid of my hangover.

Yeah that will never work out.

So the next step, if you can't get with being honest with your excuse is to state a far more acceptable reason along the lines of the truth.

I'm late today because I really had a bad migraine when I woke up this morning. (re: hangover)

Okay so that will do pig... well, dude, whatever!

Another tip is to have a collection of ready excuses for any occasion.Yeah, sounds a bit pathological, but useful though. In the 90s, Parker Lewis kept his tardy excuses on file on a Rolodex, so a bit of a throwback there, the lesson here is- you can't lose with every excuse you could think of because it can come in handy one day.

Here's a quick list of excuse letters from Letterbarn:

Late for Work Excuse Letter

Excuse Letter for Tardiness: Showing Up Late for Work

Excuse Letter for School: Kindly Excuse my Child Letter

6 Useful Excuse Letters Due to Illness

Excuse Letter to Miss Work the Next Day

Sample Sick Day Excuse Letter


One more thing, never ever go the fabulist's route, tall tales or any other bullshit don't ever work on your bosses or teachers.But if you want a full proof excuse, just go get a doctor's note and complain of a tummy ache then skip work or what not. Also genius, when you use an excuse letter you got off from the Internet, just think about this, how many people are submitting the exact same note? Customize the letter a bit, tweak it in such a way that it does come from you. So goodluck with that!