Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips

[Hrach_Techie]

12 Dec 2000; Jessica Bauer (UWEC student)
23 Jan 2001; edited and expanded by Prof. Jerz
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This document offers 10 tips to help you write effective professional e-mails. The informal e-mails you exchange with your friends don't have to meet any particular standards, of course, but if you want to be taken seriously by professionals, you should know e-mail etiquette.

1. Write a meaningful subject line.
2. Keep the message focused and readable.
3. Use attachments sparingly.
4. Identify yourself clearly.
5. Be kind. Don't flame.
6. Proofread.
7. Don't assume privacy.
8. Distinguish between formal and informal situations.
9. Check your inbox regularly.
10. Always reply promptly.

1. Write a meaningful subject line.

Recipients often scan the subject line first in order to decide which messages to open and which to trash. If you want your message to be read immediately, highlight its importance with a subject headline that piques curiosity (Nucifora) or actually states the substance of your message.
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Subject: "Important! Read Immediately!"
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What is important to you may not be important to your reader.

[I have my e-mail filter set to trash e-mail messages with more than one exclamation mark in the subject line. Anyone who shouts at me is being abusive, trying to sell me something, or both. --DGJ]
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Subject: "Meeting"
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The content of this message could be anything from a request for a meeting, the announcement of a cancellation or a rescheduling, or the minutes of a meeting that is already over.
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Subject: "Questions about Meeting"
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Fractionally better. If the recipient recognizes your name, and remembers what the two of you last discussed, then the subject line might be somewhat meaningful.
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Subject: "Quarterly report: how do I write the intro?"
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Details like this will encourage the recipient to read and respond quickly.

2. Keep the message focused and readable.

Stick to two or three short paragraphs. Often recipients only read partway through, hit "reply" as soon as they have something to contribute, and forget to read the rest of the message. If you have multiple subjects, and you really need to address each one, don't be afraid to send multiple messages.

Focused:

• Provide the who, what, when, where, and why, unless the topic is of a personal rather than a business nature (Nucifora).
• If you put more multiple questions in an e-mail, your recipient is likely to hit "return" after the first question that sparks his or her interest, and completely ignore the second.
• Some people receive hundreds of messages a day, so the last thing they want to see is a four-page manifesto with figurative language and irrelevant details. Keep it simple!

Readable:

• Skip lines between paragraphs.
• Avoid fancy text. Don't depend upon bold typefaces or text size to communicate information -- many people's e-mail readers only display plain text, and the most high-tech people in your office may actually be reading their e-mail on the tiny monochrome screens of their electronic organizers.
  • Use asterisks to show *emphasis*.
  • Use underscores to show _underlining_.
• Don't type in all-caps.
  • Online, typing in all-caps conventionally represents shouting.
  • It doesn't matter whether you do or do not intend to be interpreted as shouting. The convention is so strong, that people will tend to react aggressively anyway -- the capital letters turn your otherwise ordinary sentence into a kind of challenge. [When I recently opened an all-caps message sent by a non-technical colleague, I found myself recoiling from the screen as if I had been slapped. The strength of my reaction was completely beyond my control, and I barely refrained from replying with a lecture... --DGJ]
• Don't type in all-lowercase, either. [An old roommate of mine used to do that. I don't know why. Maybe just to bug me. --DGJ]

3. Use attachments sparingly.

Avoid attachments unless they are essential, because they

• take time to download
• could transmit viruses
• take up space on your recipient's computer, and

don't always translate correctly (especially for people who might read their e-mail

• on portable devices).

Instead of sending a whole word processor file, just copy and paste the relevant text into the e-mail. If you want advice on your layout, then there's a reason to include the whole file.

4. Identify yourself clearly.

When contacting someone (especially someone you do not know), always include your name, occupation, and any other important identification information in the first few sentences. Identifying yourself will also help the reader decide the context of your message ("E-Mail Ettiquette"). Remember: Your message is not the only one in your receiver's inbox.

5. Be kind. Don't flame.

To "flame" someone is to write an abusive personal attack. If you find yourself writing an angry message in the heat of the moment, walk away and cool off before you hit "send". Once you hit send, you cannot take back what you wrote.

The "flame" is a long-established Internet tradition.

When groups of people gather physically together, they signal status by who gets the comfy chairs, by who gets served and who has to serve, by who can talk and who must listen, etc. Online communities don't provide their members with these signals.

Internet communities often use flaming in order to uphold hierarchy, define membership, and forge allegiances -- at the expense of somebody who (intentionally or intentionally) threatens the cohesion of the group. In some ways, social flaming is a rite of passage, like hazing, boot-camp, and ritual cattiness at cocktail parties.

But if an employee flames a supervisor, or vice versa, the power differential complicates the situation. No matter how personally intimate the two parties are, the relationship between boss and hireling (or professor and student) is not primarily social. The stakes are different, and so are the rules of etiquette.

If you flame your boss or your professor, that message will probably surface someday when you're up for promotion or you want a letter of recommendation.

If you flame an underling or student (especially in public), then you damage that person's trust in your leadership, and you probably won't get that person's best work in the future.

6. Proofread.

Always run a spell check before hitting send. Studies have shown that messages full of grammatical errors are often sent straight to the trash. Remember: It only takes a few extra seconds to run a spell checker, and it may influence whether your message is read or trashed. While spelling checkers won't catch every mistake, they will certainly help cut down on the number of typographical errors.

7. Don't assume privacy.

Don't send anything over e-mail that you wouldn't want posted -- with your name attached -- on a public bulletin board.

E-mail is not secure. Just as random pedestrians could easily reach into your mailbox and intercept the envelopes that you send and receive through the post office, a curious hacker, a malicious criminal, or the FBI can easily intercept your e-mail. In some companies, the e-mail administrator has the ability to read any and all e-mail messages (and may fire you if you write anything inappropriate).

8. Distinguish between formal and informal situations.

When you are writing to a friend or a close colleague, it is OK to use "smilies" , abbreviations (IIRC for "if I recall correctly", LOL for "laughing out loud," etc.) and nonstandard punctuation and spelling (like that found in instant messaging or chat rooms). These linguistic shortcuts are generally signs of friendly intimacy, like sharing cold pizza with a family friend. If you tried to share that same cold pizza with a first date, or a visiting dignitary, you would give off the impression that you did not really care about the meeting. By the same token, don't use informal language when your reader expects a more formal approach. Always know the situation, and write accordingly.

9. Check your inbox regularly.

If you want to appear professional and courteous, make yourself available to your online correspondents. If you do not check your inbox and reply promptly, someone may think you are ignoring his or her message.

Remember: Checking your inbox is just like checking your answering machine. [I once had a technical writing intern whose answering machine usually had about 15 or 20 stored messages on it. I didn't hear from her after several tries, and the number of beeps kept getting longer. Then, after the number of beeps got shorter again, I knew that she was working on some of her messages, but that mine were not a priority for her. --DGJ]

10. Always reply promptly.

A reply lets senders know that you got their messages. Even if all you can manage is a brief acknowledgement, you are still letting the senders know that you received their messages. Remember: e-mail systems are not flawless, and messages can be lost -- so

always reply.

• No one is perfect, so be tolerant of other's mistakes.

Following e-mail etiquette guidelines makes life easier for everyone.

References & Further Reading

• Alsop, Stewart. "My Rules of Polite Digital Communication." Fortune. 142.2 (10 July 2000): p 76. Online. Academic Search Elite. 9 October 2000.
• Cronin, Jennifer. "Netiquette, schmetiquette." Des Moines Business Record 16.24 (12 June 2000): p 11. Online. MasterFILE Premier. 9 October 2000.
• "Email Etiquette." I Will Follow Services. 1997. <http://www.iwillfollow.com/emailetiquette.html>. 9 October 2000.
• Nucifora, Alf. "Use etiquette when messaging via email." Memphis Business Journal 21.51 (14 April 2000): p23. Online. MasterFILE Premier. 9 October 2000.

Thorton, Sam. Rules and Regulations: Email Etiquette. 29 April 1998. <http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/ITS/rules/email.htm>. 9 October 2000.

[Speedy Gonzales]

polezno

[Hrach_Techie]

I found the stuff on the web.