Writing for Style: Professional Emails

Adapted from Richard Nordquist at About Grammar.

E-mail is the most common form of written business communication - and the most commonly abused. Faced with an empty message screen, even a perfectly well-adjusted adult can turn abruptly into Dilbert's pointy-haired boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."

When 100 emails a day fill our mailbox, being concise counts.

Take a look at this e-mail message recently sent to all staff members on a large university campus:

It is time to renew your faculty/staff parking decals. New decals are required by Nov. 1, 2007. Parking Rules and Regulations require that all vehicles driven on campus must display the current decal.

Slapping a "Hi!" in front of this message doesn't solve the problem. It only adds an air of giddiness.

Instead, We can make this email nicer and shorter and probably more effective if we simply added a "please" and addressed the reader directly:

Please renew your faculty/staff parking decals by November 1.

Next, add how and where to renew. That's a professional email.

Quick Tips on Writing Professional E-mails

• Always fill in the subject line with a topic that means something to your reader. Not "Decals" or "Important!" but "Deadline for New Parking Decals."
• Put your main point in the opening sentence. An e-mail shouldn't sound like Dickens.
• Never start a message with a vague "This." ("This needs to be done by 5:00.") Because most of us have to read dozens of e-mails a day, specify which "this" you're talking about.
• Don't use ALL CAPITALS (no shouting!). or all lower-case letters either (unless you're e. e. cummings).
• Remember to say "please" and "thank you." And mean it. "Thank you for understanding why afternoon breaks have been eliminated" is prissy and petty and mean. It's not polite.
• Edit and proofread before hitting "send." If your messages look like excerpts from a ten-year-old's chat room, don't be surprised if they're forwarded with a chortle to people you've never met.
• Finally, reply promptly to serious messages. If you need more than 24 hours to collect information or make a decision, send a brief response explaining the delay.