Email – love it or hate it, it’s ingrained into our personal and business lives – the communication tool of choice for the information age, due to its speed, reach, and universal appeal.
Email has changed the way we write. Compared to typically quite formal written documents, an email allows us to be a little more personal – a little more humanistic in our language – after all, we’ve gone from a turnaround of a few days for snail mail to a few seconds for email.
But even though the humble email has only been in existence for 15 years or so, it has already begun to change again, this time into something even more casual and – worse still – something that often fails to do what it is meant to do – to get a clear and concise message through to its recipient.
The following is a refresher on good email etiquette, good email habits, and good formatting tips for writing emails with clarity and punch.
Use plain-text emails
Graphic artists often enjoy the challenge of working with a limited colour pallette because it forces them to use other graphic ‘tools’ to get a clear message through. It’s not unlike the fact that a black and white photo distills the vibrancy and life of a colour photo down into a more stark and revealing image.
As a general rule, use plain text emails rather than HTML (or rich-text) emails – yes, they don’t look as good, no, you can’t change the font nor the size nor the colour – BUT the plain text email can be read by anyone, anywhere, anytime. HTML emails (the type you get that can look like full-blown web sites) can differ slightly in formatting from end user to end user, no matter how carefully you plan them.
Use lots of line breaks
Vertical space is probably the only thing you have an abundance of when writing plain text emails – you can always add in extra blank lines to space out paragraphs, or add double or triple blank lines between paragraphs. So perhaps rather than keeping sentences together (like this one is), use more space, and make more lines between paragraphs.
Showing emphasis
So, with plain text emails, bold is gone, as well as italic. The solution is an old ‘internet trick’ direct from the chat rooms: place *asterisks* around things that you would have previously made *bold*. See? It’s just a convention, and like all conventions, it was probably an arbitrary choice a *long* time ago – but once you get know it, it becomes second nature.
This is probably a good time to mention one other vital internet convention – THAT OF USING ALL CAPITALS. For the uninitiated, it’s considered the equivalent of ‘shouting’ at someone through an email, and as such, is considered bad email etiquette. Bad form. If you happen to type an email with the caps lock key left on, don’t panic – most people will realise!
Bullet lists
Creating a list of items in a word processing program will most likely bring up a series of bullets points (•). In a plain text email, you can still use the bullet point (hold down the option key and type a number 8 if you’re on a Mac!), but most likely, you can simply use a series of hyphens or dashes, depending on which side of the tracks you grew up on.
Subject lines
Keep them on target – don’t reuse the same old subject line from 6 weeks ago when replying to an old email – make sure you change the subject line of *any* email to a decent summary of the contents. There’s nothing worse than scanning email after email from someone, all with the exact same subject line – there’s no reference to the contents of the email, only a date to assist you.
Replying
Be judicious when replying to an email – especially if you re-quote the previous email back in the new reply – as you know, you can quickly get into a multi-level reply to a reply to a reply. Not fun. Be brave, and only re-quote one specific paragraph maximum when replying, or better yet, start a fresh email!
Check your recipients
Most importantly of all, double- and triple-check your recipients – you wouldn’t want to send your shopping list to your doctor, or your laundry list to the entire parish council.
We’ve all heard the horror stories from people who have sent their flaming emails to the cause of their anger, not to a sympathetic ear!
Email signatures
Everyone needs one – it’s the last couple of lines of any email that should always provide some basic contact points, and if you like, something memorable that promotes a smile. Even smarter, though, is to plan ahead a little bit, and also include your ‘standard signoff’ in the signature, so that all you have to do is end your email content, and then your email signature automatically adds a few extra blank lines, signs off for you, and then gives your standard blurb about you. Oh, look – here it is now!
AB out
—–
Andrew Ballard is the owner of ReBusiness.com.au, a marketing/IT/design consultancy based in Geelong, Victoria.
