Effective Email

Writing

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 Agenda
What is E-mail ?
How to Make an Effective E-Mail.
Few common e-mail habits that cause
Problems.
Structure of E-Mail..
I. Addressing.
II. Subjects.
III. Message Text.
IV. Attachments.
V. Signature.
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 What is E-Mail ?
• Text-based mail sent via the computer from
one person to another
• A Push Technology
• It is One-to-Many and almost Free

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 How to Make an Effective
E-mail
• Selecting Your Audience Correctly
• Composing Your Messages
 Make the heading meaningful
 Keep each message short and clear.
 Start each message by stating its purpose/context
Few common e-mail habits
that cause Problems…
Changing the topic without changing the
subject.
Including multiple subjects

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 Before you compose
• The first step in writing e-mail message is to
identify the purpose of the message.
• Focus your content. Don't let unnecessary ideas
into your principal message.
 Structure of E-Mail
• Addressing
• Subject
• Message Text
• Attachments
• Signature

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 1. Addressing
• It’s the address of the recipient.
• Use BCC to protect Email addresses unless everyone
knows each other.
• Maintain address book.

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 Salutations

• If you are addressing a group of people, you can say

"Dear" plus the unifying attribute. For example:
Dear Project Managers: Or:
Dear Team Members:
 Salutations

• "Good Morning" and "Good Afternoon" don't make

sense with email, as the sun may have moved
significantly by the time your correspondent gets
around to it.
  The To: line
• The To line and the Subject line are integrated.

• Each individual on the To line is responsible for

taking the action (or part of an action) outlined
on the Subject line and the message relates
directly to them.
  The Cc: line
• No action or response is expected of individuals
on the Cc line. The recipient needs only to read
or file the message.

• The individuals whose work is indirectly

affected by the communication should be
included on the Cc line.
  Bcc: line

•BCC stands for “blind carbon copy.” Just like CC,

BCC is a way of sending copies of an email to
other people. The difference between the two is
that, while you can see a list of recipients when CC
is used, that’s not the case with BCC. It’s called
blind carbon copy because the other recipients
won’t be able to see that someone else has been
sent a copy of the email.
2. Subject
 Precise headline for the message
 Makes easier to handle of e-MAIL
 Avoid sending e-mail with No subject

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 Q. Why is the subject line so
important?

Good subjects line helps reader answer these questions:

1.When should I read this e-mail?
2.What is this e-mail about?
3.Will I need to do anything?
4.Can I delete this e-mail without reading it?
 Ineffective subject lines
Subject Date&Time

Hi 9:17 am

questions 10:11 am

Meeting 12:44 pm

One more thing........... 3:02 pm

Some thoughts 4:21pm

 Effective subject lines
Subject Date&Time

Party planning meeting rescheduled for 3pm 9:17 am

Help: I can’t find the draft for the Smith Paper 10:11 am

Reminder: peer-review articles due tomorrow (3/30) 12:44 pm

Questions about Sociology 210 project 3:02 pm

Congratulations to Jennifer for winning Nobel Prize 4:21pm

Subject Date

Re: Question about Smith paper (was: please help with

10:11 am
this!)

Change subject lines when

necessary

Subject Date

Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Reminder: Deadline for Spring

9:17 am
Semester Is Jan. 15]]

Remove extra email prefixes

 How to write a useful subject line
Begin with a noun that identifies the type of message you’re writing

• Question • Policy
• Inquiry • Schedule
• Request • Invitation
• Recommendation • Announcement
• Suggestion
• Follow-up
• Proposal
• Update
• Instructions
• Alert
• Procedure
• Agenda
 3. Message Text
• Keep the message focused and readable
• Keep it short
• Brevity and clarity
• Use paragraphs
• Break into paragraphs; skip lines between

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 Message Text ( cont. )
• Use * * to highlight text if you must
• Write in standard professional English with
Capitalization and correct spelling
• Quote back using contexts
• Identify yourself clearly to cold contacts.
• Hello, I am…The reason I am writing…
• Hello, so-in-so suggested I contact you…
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 Composing the content…

• Remove Pronouns: Imagine getting a response

on Monday to some email that you can't quite
remember sending on Friday.
I talked to them about it the other day, and they
want to see the other one before they make up
their minds.
• Your response would probably be the highly
articulate, "Huh???"
 Composing the Content

• The most important step in e-mail message is to

identify the type of action that the recipient has to
take after reading your message.

• If multiple individuals are responsible for different

actions, clearly indicate who is responsible for what.

• Always include due dates for each action.

 Composing the Content
• The four most common types of actions are:
• Action  recipient has to perform a physical action. Ex: "Provide a proposal
for a 5% reduction in Travel & Entertainment."
• Respond  recipient needs only to respond to your message. Ex: “Can you
attend the staff meeting on Friday?"
• Read Only  recipient needs only to read your message. Ex: “Please read
the attached sales plan before next staff meeting on Dec 12th."
• FYI Only  recipient needs only to file your message for future reference.
Even reading the message is optional. Ex: "Enclosed for your records are
your completed.
Jon,
Poor Email Content
Hey, I was just thinking about the meeting we had about the new
workshop you were planning for next week about resume-writing. I think
that we may have forgotten to include all of the students who might benefit
from this workshop. There are several groups of students at the School of
Public Health that were not on your list. Of course you may have added
them to you list since our last meeting. Sara from the School of Public
Health contacted me to ask if the students from the Epidemiology program
were on our list of included students. She also wanted a list of all of the
included departments from the School of Public Health. Can you send me
a list of all of the included student groups? I can then send the relevant
information on to Sara because she needs this information by tomorrow.
Thanks,
Rachell
 Better Email Content
Jon,
Can you send me a list of the students included in the resume-
writing workshop by tomorrow?
We may have forgotten to include all of the students who
might benefit from this workshop. There are several groups of
students at the School of Public Health that were not on your
list. Sara from the School of Public Health contacted me to ask
if the students from the Epidemiology program were on our
list. I will send her that information tomorrow after I get the
list from you.
Thanks,
Rachell
 4. Attachments
Cut and paste relevant parts of attachment into text of
Email.

Use URL links instead.

 Upload attachments to website and cite URL.

Compress large attachments and send attachments only

when they are absolutely necessary.

Have a good virus scanner in place. People will not be

very happy with mails full of viruses. 27
 5. E-mail Signature
 Use an appropriate signature
 Brief (4-5 lines)
 Informative
I. provide all contact information
 Professional
I. do not include pictures, quotes,
animations.
II. Whenever a piece of contact
information changes, make sure your
signature updated accordingly.
 Identification
• When you send email to someone who doesn't know you,
immediately answer these questions:
• Who are you?
• How did you learn of your correspondent?
• What do you want from your correspondent?
• Why should your correspondent pay attention to you?
If you can't answer the last question, consider whether you
should even send the email.
 Identification
• Here is a ideal message which answers all the questions
mentioned earlier:

Dear Ms. Kulkarni:

I am an editor at Penguin Publishing Company, Inc. I sat
next to your brother at Inox last week, and he mentioned
that you are interested in publishing a book based Indian
recipes. I would be very interested in receiving a proposal
from you.
 Before Sending…
• Improper spelling, grammar and punctuation
give a bad impression, and can sometimes
even change the meaning of the text.

• Read the email through the eyes of the

recipient before you send it.
 Replies
• Answer swiftly.
 Each e-mail should be replied to within at least
24 hours, and preferably within the same working
day.

 If the email is complicated, send an email

saying that you have received it and that you
will get back to them. This will put the
people’s mind at rest and usually they will
then be very patient!
 Replies
Respond only to messages that require one. When
replying make sure that you are adding value to the
conversation, truly moving it forward.
  
While replying to an e-mail message with an
attachment, which is to accompany your reply, you
must forward the message instead of using the "Reply"
or "Reply All" button. Otherwise, the attachment is not
included with the message.
 Acronymns
• ASAP: as soon as possible
• BTW: By the way
• CU: See you (good-bye)
• FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions
• HTH: Hope this helps
• TIA: Thanks in Advance
Netiquette:
The Rules to Email
and Communicating
Online
 What is Netiquette?

• Netiquette is the code of the internet

because the internet is a network
and etiquette is a code.
• It comes from network and etiquette.
 The Basic Rule
The basic rule of netiquette is
to use good manners.
 Core Netiquette Rules
Always spell check & proof read before sending or
posting. Also, if you are emailing an employer or
possible employer, you should avoid slang.
 Core Netiquette Rules
Do not use ALL CAPS, because online it looks like
you are shouting.
Don’t send too much email (the more you
send the greater chance you have of
sending a bad message.) Be open-minded
in what you receive (the more you receive
the better informed you are because you
are receiving more information.)
Do not send e-mail late at night
because it may call your lifestyle into
question.
• Think about it: What would it
say to me as your teacher if you
emailed me a question about
your homework at 2 a.m.?
Any Question?