Carol Briggs
Elective
#9:
Email Tips for Middle
School
and High School Students
1. Be nice.
Email doesn't convey emotions well.
The reader of your email can't see your body language or hear the tone
of your voice. Make sure your audience
understands what you mean. Don't be
sarcastic. Here is my rule of
thumb: Don't say something in your
email that you wouldn't say in person.
2. Use Emoticons. :-) This helps you be clear about a funny or light moment in an email. If you are sad about something you can use the sad face :-(
3. Make a useful subject line. Put enough information in your subject line to have it be useful to your reader. If you just write "question" or "information" in the subject line, it doesn't help your reader very much. Put in a couple of details or key words.
4. Only indicate urgent when it really is urgent. Some email systems, like Outlook, allow you
to send an email with a red exclamation point (
! ) near the subject line to indicate that the email
is urgent. If you don't have the option
of the ! then sometimes people will use the word
URGENT in the subject line of their email.
Only use !
or URGENT if it really is urgent. Some
people send all their emails with the urgent indication. If you do that –
people will start to ignore your urgent indication. Don't be like the boy who cried wolf.
5. Be careful of strange formatting or special fonts. Other people's email program might not pick up on it. I love this example from "A Beginner's Guide to effective email" by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood (http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.format.php):
Here is an example of what you might see: Hiya! Hey, I loved the presentation you
gave to Jack this morning. Great Job!
Here is an example of what your reader might see: Hiya! Hey, I <I>loved<I> the presentation you gave to
Jack this morning. <B>Great Job!<B> 6. Break up paragraphs into small chunks. Put a full line space between paragraphs. This will help ensure that your reader will comprehend more of your content. If there is something that they really need to see, put the sentence on a line by itself with a full line above and a full line below.
7. Use * or !!! or caps for emphasis. If something just needs *a little* emphasis, do it like *this.* If something needs A LOT of emphasis, do it like THIS!!!!!! However, if you type a lot of text in caps, your reader will think you are YELLING AT THEM!!!! So, use caps thoughtfully.
8. Think about your audience – don't forward all those cute little jokes, pictures, poems, etc. to everyone on your email list. If you think someone in your email address book would especially love it, then go for it!
9. Reply if it needs a reply. If someone asks you a direct question in an email and you don't reply, they don't know what to do. Did you get their email or not? They can't figure out why you haven't replied. Do you need to think it over? It is better to tell someone you need to think it over or do further research than to just leave them hanging.
10. Make an appropriate sign-off. If you are sending a work email you should (in most cases) write your first and last name, your position, and (if appropriate) your location. It is difficult to get a work email when you don't know who the person is, or what their position is, or where they work. It can be confusing.