Professional Documents
Culture Documents
E-mail Writing
Lecture 2
Spring 2023
By studying this chapter, students will be able to:
Learning • Learn the rules of writing emails.
Objectives • identify different parts of an email.
• Recognize and analyze the formal and informal emails.
Spelling and grammar mistakes, abrupt tone, overreacting or
simply not answering questions can all make readers judge your e-
mails in a negative light.
E-mail Writing Therefore, take the time you need to get it right (Gerrish et.al.,
2007, p. 27).
Choose a
suitable email On the other hand, if I wrote my address as follows (i.e. not given
name + family name), it might be much more difficult for my
address Cont. recipient to locate me:
adrianwallwork@gmail.com
awallwork@gmail.com
wallworka@gmail.com
2. Check how your name will appear in your recipient’s inbox
If your recipient uses Gmail, then the first time your recipient receives an
email from you, the first two words of how you choose your email name
will appear, in my case Abdullah Noori.
Choose a In future emails, it will appear with just the first word.
suitable email
This means that if you have chosen the name Prof. Adrian Wallwork, then
address Cont. in future emails your recipient will just see the word Prof.
address Cont. Make sure that yours does not look similar in type.
The "To line" is reserved for the primary audience of the email,
those who are directly affected or need the information contained
in the message.
The ‘To line’
Sending email to people who do not need the information creates
unnecessary email traffic if someone responds who should not
respond, or if someone creates a fuss over receiving the email
unnecessarily (Martinez 2008. p. 34).
This stands for "carbon copy’”
When you want to send a copy of your email to other people, you
keep their email addresses in the “CC” field.
By doing this, you are keeping those people in the loop of your
email communication.
CC or cc:
Anyone who is kept in the CC loop can see the email address of the
person who is kept in the “To” field, and as well as the email
addresses of all other persons who are kept in the CC field.
Also, when the main recipient in the “To” field replies to your
email, he has two options: 1) Either reply to you only or 2) To reply
to all, keeping everyone in the CC loop informed.
As the name suggests, Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) is a way to send a
copy of email to your recipients without letting any party know
who else is in this loop.
BCC or bcc It means that the Copy of the e-mail message is sent to a recipient
whose address cannot be seen by other recipients.
Subject line As a reader scans over the list of numerous emails every day, the
subject line often determines what will be read now versus later, or
maybe never at all.
A good subject line is specific, clear, which tell the reader exactly
what the email contains, matches to the contents of the email.
Poor choice of words: Better choice of words:
Cont.
Request for information Request for software development update
Very generic subject lines often cause an email to end up in the spam.
Dear sir,
I’m an English teacher and for a writing course I have been asked to
teach your precious book on writing papers (English for Writing
Papers). I deeply appreciate your kindness if you could guide how I can
teach this book.
Ensure that your subject line is not spam friendly Cont.
When writing to someone you do not know by name, you put "To
Whom it May Concern."
Salutation
When applying for a job. you would address the person by, "Dear
Hiring Manager."
You should write the last name "Dear Mr./Ms. Smith." For a formal
salutation, you should not use the recipient's first name or the
informal greetings "Hello" or "Hey"
Avoid gender titles (e.g., Mr. Mrs.) in first email to new contact
In fact, what perhaps look like female names, may be male names,
and vice versa. E.g., Kenta, Kota, Yuta are all male names in
Salutation Japanese.
Cont. In addition, many English first names seem to have no clear
indication of the sex e.g. Saxon, Adair, Chandler, Chelsea.
And some English names can be for both men and women e.g. Jo,
Sam, Chris, and Lesley.
Avoid gender titles (e.g., Mr. Mrs.) in first email to new contact
Salutation In some cases, it may not be clear to you which is the person’s first
Cont. and last name, e.g., Stewart James.
If you were writing to me (the author of this book) for the first time
you would write:
Salutation
Cont. But you would not use this formula for every subsequent email that
you write, i.e. you would not write Dear Adrian Wallwork in your next
email.
Depending on the level of formality that you wish to maintain and also
depending on how I sign myself in my reply to you, then you would
probably write:
Be careful of PunctuationYou can punctuate the salutation in
three ways:
Dear Adrian Wallwork,
Dear Adrian Wallwork:
Dear Adrian,
Closing The closing is then followed by your full name. It is also beneficial
to add your job position (if applicable) and phone number under
your name in the 4th paragraph. Example:
Sincerely,
Jawid Karimi
Student Kabul University
(0093) 789553135
If in doubt how to end your email, use Best regards
You can use this with practically anyone. Best regards is often
preceded with another standard phrase, for example Thank you in
Closing Cont. advance, or I look forward to hearing from you.
Note the punctuation. Each sentence ends with a full stop, apart
from the final salutation (Best regards) where you can put either a
comma (,) or no punctuation.
I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance.
Best regards, Best regards
Adrian Wallwork Adrian Wallwork
Don’t use a sequence of standard phrases in your final salutation
What you include in your signature has some effect on the recipient’s
perception of who you are and what you do. It is generally a good idea
Signature to include most or all of the following.
• Your name
• Your position
• Your company
• Your department / division / branch
• Your phone number
• You email address
Attachment should be referred to in the introduction.
Reply All
Even when welcoming a new hire, forward a response to only the
new hire and not the entire list (Martinez et.al, 2008, p. 37).
1. Write a clear, descriptive subject line that encourages the
recipients to open and read it.
2. Make the overall purpose and message of the email clear in the
Rules to write first couple of sentences.
an effective 3. Break the email into extra-small, manageable chunks to support
email effective skimming.
4. Keep the email short and concise so it can be read quickly.
5. Use correct spelling, grammar, and parallel sentence structure.
6. Proofread and make sure the text says what is intended
7. ALLCAPS implies yelling
Rules to write 8. Don’t use contractions. For example, don't, haven't, I’m, isn’t…
an effective 9. Make sure the tone of the message is not too abrupt or offensive,
email especially for those who have a tendency to be direct.
an effective employer, compose the e-mail, let it sit for an hour or so, have a
friend read it, and then re-read it aloud before sending it.
email 14. E-mail content is subject to disclosure and is often forwarded beyond
Cont. the intended recipient. Never e-mail content that doesn't have
appropriate information.
15. Never use email when a face-to-face dialog is needed. Do not use it
when a formal document is required; it does not carry the status of a
formal report. (Gerrish et.al., 2007, p. 29).
The professional world uses a variety of written forms of
communication.