Writing Effective Email

Keep your messages brief and complete.

Give complete information, and keep your message short. That will help your readers respond to you most effectively.

In email, all other social cues, voice, etc. are gone, so it is important to be careful when you write.

Bad spelling may falsely communicate that you are sloppy or illiterate. Email does not communicate emotions well, and worse yet jokes and sarcasm can completely fail when stripped of its context.

Use useful subject lines!

Many of the folks you write to may be swamped with email; useful subject lines will help them sort their mail, and help your message to get noticed.

Subject line tips:

• Be brief; many email programs truncate subject lines.
• Summarize the main point of your email.
• Don't use the word "information", too many messages do.
• Don't worry about making a complete sentence.

If you are responding to previous email, quote the text that you are referring to.

Instead of sending an email that says "yes", include the question you are replying to with your response. When troubleshooting, we often include all of the details so no significant detail is missed.

Replace pronouns with detail.

Carefully examine the pronouns in the first few sentences of your email. If they do not refer to objects specifically stated in your email, replace them with words that are more descriptive. For example: "I talked to them about it the other day, and they want to see the other one before they make up their minds." is more clearly stated this way: "I talked to the Johnsons yesterday, and they wanted to see the red bicycle before they made up their minds"

Use shorter paragraphs

They are easier to read than long ones in most email programs. It is a good idea to pare your paragraphs down to a couple of sentences, and use a line of space between them.

Use capital letters sparingly.

In email, ALL CAPITAL LETTERS READS LIKE SHOUTING, please do not shout unless you feel STRONGLY about something.