Discussion on:

Nine guidelines for writing effective email messages

Do you have any other tips for writing effective emails?

I would suggest compact and useful signatures. an 8 line signature with pictures repeated across innumerable emails and in depths of many layers is what I think is rude. Make your sig file in notepad. compare to identical file made in word, 1k or 25k.

Using simple formatting and or eliminating HTML and rich text email goes a long way to securing email and eliminating waste space.

IMHO, PPL TREATING ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION JUST LIKE WRITTEN COMMUNICATION THAT IT NOW REPLACES, YMMV. -LOL

TTYL

:-P

@Spitfire_Sysop - You nearly had me! Then I checked your profile and saw some of your other answers elsewhere... and realised what a mickey-take your comment in this thread is/was. Thanks for the smile; I'm glad that my knee-jerk reactions are slowing down. 8-)

That was a love letter. You wrote all nine points for your love of the language.

What a nice thing to say! Thank you!

I think what's missing with email communications is the writer's ability to change gears a bit. The change of voice was almost automatic when writing a business letter--it was (is) serious work. That change from normal voice to business voice just hasn't evolved in the email process. Some do it, but for many, the two worlds have collided.

Perhaps I'm over-thinking it all a bit -- I'm for communicating and I care less about the rules than results. When receiving an email, I don't lament the sender's poor spelling or grammar, if I understand the message. Proper spelling and grammar make it easier of course.

When discussing this subject, I can't help but remember the Mad Max movie with the Aussie kids living out in the desert and creating a new language for themselves.

Speaking of love of the language, though, in your first point, you find yourself "skimming", not "scanning". "Scan" means to scrutinize intently, "skim" means to glance over briefly.

Anyone that works in IT, knows this stuff already, its like a standard thing

Nice article, Susan.
I must say that I agree with you especially for the grammar and spelling, but I disagree about the emoticons part. Sometimes is necessary to express an emotion regards a situation or something that might be so hard if you dont show to the reader that you are not angry, or sad Using : - ) or : - ( is sufficient, it is not necessary to put high-colored-icons.

Sincerely,
Josep Oncins

I use them a lot too -- you'll even find my thoughts here peppered with them. I'm not sure I would one in a serious business message though. I'm sure I haven't done that before. I'm trying to imagine needing one. I guess, there are different levels of business/professional communications.

NEVER ever mention more than one, and ONLY one thing, one point, or one question in an email. Have three questions - want 3 good answers? Send 3 emails; trust me on this one, it works every time.

I have been discovering this rule as well recently after I changed job roles. I adopted your "only one" rule for one particular user after the 3rd time she responded to only the first question I emailed her about. I didn't think it would be very hard to answer both questions since the questions were only 2 sentences each. I guess I was just expecting too much.

I run into this one myself: I forgot to thumb down to see if there's anything past what I see on screen. A silly mistake, but one I make more often than I care to admit.

jives with my past experience - good suggestion - same recipient / multiple questions / multiple emails

Many thanks for this valuable information

Start your email by asking for what you want them to do or to know.

Most people lose interest after about 15 seconds, so I always start the email by saying exactly what I need the recipient to know/do and then include the details about why beginning as a separate paragraph so that if they bail after the first sentence or two at least i've gotten my key point across. If they want the details then they are there later in the email.

In an age when email has moved from being a sort of quick note to being a replacement for regular business communications, several of the most accurate points made in this article simply highlight the catastrophic failure of the US educational system and the resulting abysmal lack of standards among too many "educated" "professionals."

We have to keep email short because people are too lazy to read more than two or three paragraphs (actually, many executives are incapable of paying attention to more than two or three sentences).

People need to be reminded to check spelling and grammar using the tools in their software because so many people have turned off those tools because they find all the corrections annoying. We have an education system that teaches students that spelling and grammar are obsolete concepts that no longer matter. In the business world, spelling and grammar often do matter, but the "spell check" built in to most software if woefully inadequate for the task today. How many emails and letters do each of us read every day that contain words which are spelled correctly - except that it is completely the wrong word. Most grammar checkers are incapable of handling anything much more complex than See Spot Run. Which may not be a bad idea considering how few people can write - or read - anything above that level.

And one point that Ms. Harkins omitted, pay attention to the difference between TO and CC addressees.

Thanks for a thoughtful response. You're right -- we shouldn't depend on spell checkers -- they're a grand tool, but not the end of the process!

I'm going to take exception to you "no acronyms" rule. They have their place, but make sure you expand the acronym the first time you use it. For example: ABC (Always Be Concise). Having worked for a large corporation where an acronym could have several different meanings, it decreases the possibility of misunderstanding.

Just don't do it. We recently moved to Outlook and almost immediately some of our users found that they could put backgrounds on their email messages. One user actually started using a background that made the email text itself difficult to read. I don't know if someone said something to the user about it, but she finally did drop the background. I don't know what it does to the message size, but I think that backgrounds on emails are just plain annoying. Back when I was doing helpdesk work, I would go out of my way to strip annoying backgrounds and text styles out of emails before replying to them.

maybe you said this in another article - but might have been suitable for this one too - don't send "thank you"s

I'm not sure what you mean by a thank you -- can you clarify? I send thank you messages when I think they're appropriate.

There was a previous article that mentioned inbox filling thank you messages. You are correct that they are sometimes appropriate but I think I've had my fill of the "look how late I'm pretending to work thank you" from some person marginally involved in a project. I know the real interested and involved parties are appreciative of those involved.

emails that merely say "thank you" may be welcome by some people - but to others - they just waste of time

i suppose the world can be divided between those who feel "thank yous" are essential for the continuation of the world - and those who don't feel a tacit "thank you" works just as well - the problem occurs when the two types interface

when appropriate - i'll add a "thanks in advance" in my email requesting something - and fight the urge to send an "thank you" email when the other person responds

it may seem like a small amount of time to glance and delete these - but that ignores the cost of distraction - which people of my type suffer

I totally disagree with your position to "limit copies."

I used to work in a government bureaucracy and it always amazed me that people didn't share information. I wasted countless hours working on something that had I known what others in my web of workers had known I could have saved the trouble and time or done a better job. Whenever I sent out an informational email, I tried to think of all the people who might find that info useful and cc:ed them. It amazed me that others didn't do the same, but then it was a govt bureaucracy.

You may think your message is the most important thing I should be dealing with - but you don't know what's in my Inbox.

I agree that you shouldn't put high priority on every single message just because you are the president's secretary, but there are legitimate reasons to add a high priority flag to some emails. If I have data due to the state and I haven't been able to get in touch with you any other way, I'll throw the ! on an email because it IS important. The high priority ! should only be used for truly important things though or the ! will just get ignored. (like the boy who flagged high priority?)

I translated your document into spanish and I published in my company Intranet site as well. You cannot imagine the impact this topic caused. The people started to ask how to achieve this tips into their day by day.

Thanks a lot

I always make long drawn out emails. Like I can say in 10 sentences, what most people can manage with one. So, this was very helpful to me. I am definitely going to work on these things.
Thank you very much

I might have missed it.

Always let people know that you have sent an attachment.
I always include a note in the subject line, e.g. (includes Attachment).
I mention it in the email including the name and approximate size.

Don't send "naked" links.
I always mention the web page title and then add the link.

I find that spam (and malware links) don't follow those "rules" (not yet anyway).

Something else that really gets me is users that *always* send all email with a read receipt. It's one thing if it's needed - perhaps while they are having problems with their ISP - but for every little thing? It's just not necessary - and the recipients shouldn't be forced to acknowledge each email as well as replying separately.

I have been looking over the last couple of years at better email guidance from a number of sources. One of my favorite sources is Tim Sanders whoose email web site is full of good guidance.

So as others have said i concurr with the general consensus to place recipients on the appropriate line (to vs cc), and with the avoid Reply to ALL syndrome that plauges the business world and use it only when absolutely needed.

As for the subject line - I think it needs to be used very wisely. Here is great guidance on this from Tim: http://blog.emailatoz.com/2008/08/20/master-your-subject-line/

I don't like it when I get emails with no subject in the subject heading box. A good, clear statement of what the email is about is greatly appreciated. It helps you speed through the clutter of the excess amount of email you receive.

I see that you covered many of my pet peeves. Thank you. I hope many, many people read this and heed your advice, including many of my friends and relatives. Are you listening and reading friends and family? Please do.

Merci encore.

When emailing back and forth dont ask a new question or request something different that is not in the subject line.

I agree with many of your point, but right off the bat I have to admit that I was taken aback a little bit by your first point, "Keep it brief". There are two things that just get to me about your comments:

• First, for many of us email has almost completely replaced the formal business letter and is the primary form of communication to coworkers and business contacts. It's important to realize that not all business communication can easily be broken down into a short summary. Additionally, some communications shouldn't be cut down for the sake of keeping it brief. If there are valid points to be made and clarity is a primary concern then don't forsake deliberate and precise communication in the name of brevity.

• The second thing that you said about keeping it brief was that you don't read long emails. Sadly that's not the first time I've heard someone say this in a business environment. I'm sorry to say this but personally I think that's inexcusable and terribly unprofessional. It may be a sad fact that the attention span of society today is very short but communication is a critical aspect of business and to skim or scan a business communication is simply lazy and a recipe for mistakes. While it's true that some people send emails that use too much verbiage in the content of their messages, that's no excuse for taking shortcuts and failing to be professional on our part (as the recipient).

And one other thing that you fail to mention that is an unbelievably common problem with business communication via email, is punctuation (and proper capitalization), or more precisely the lack there of. It's one thing to fail to place a coma here, or a semicolon there, but failing to use punctuation (at all) as a habit is just pathetic. Additionally, it can (and often does) lead to confusion and misunderstanding.