A Student’s Guide to Writing

Effective Email

 I know, I know, you’re in high school and you’ve been writing emails for years now, but these 10 guidelines will help you to build on your existing skills to write even more effective emails.  Keep these ideas in mind when you are composing your next email.  You may be surprised by how much you can increase your communication by simply following these easy rules.  This list has been adapted from Kaitlin Duck Sherwood’s article “A Beginner’s Guide to Effective Email”.  For further information on writing effective email, follow the link to the entire article. 

  1. Useful Subject Lines

ü      A subject line pertains clearly to the email body and will help people mentally shift to the proper context before they read your message. The subject line should be brief (as many mailers will shorten your message if it is too long), does not need to be a complete sentence, and should give a clue to the contents of the message.

ü      Example-  Subject:  need homework help by Wed.

ü      For time-critical messages, starting with URGENT: is a good idea, especially if you know the person gets a lot of email.

ü      Example-  Subject:  URGENT:  need homework help

ü      You can also start subject lines with RE: for a reply message, REQ: for requesting information/response, or FYI:  for non urgent information that requires no response.  Each of these clarifiers helps your reader to respond in a timely fashion and prepares them for what they are about to read.

ü      Eliminate using vague words or phrases in your subject line such as “information”.  You need to give your reader more to let them know precisely what you mean.  Be precise and let them know exactly what you are requesting/expressing!

  1. Quoting Documents

ü      When you are responding to an email, be sure and quote the actual document.  This will prevent you from confusing your reader and will let them know exactly what context you are responding to. 

ü      Example-  Instead of writing

 

                                               F. Scott Fitgerald

          Try-         

                           >Bobby, do you remember who wrote The Great Gatsby?  I can’t find it in my

                           >notes.  If you know please write me back and let me know.

                                           

                                               F. Scott Fitgerald

ü   By including the quoted text from the previous email, you tell you reader exactly what you are responding to and help them use the information you give them without needing to write back for further clarification.

ü   Also, avoid using pronouns in the first couple of lines of the email if you have not identified what you are writing about.  For example, don’t say.  “It went really great.  I didn’t expect it to go so well, but it sure did.  Thanks!”  You leave you’re reader confused and curious as to what “it” is.  Tell them first, then you may use pronouns.

  1. Fancy Text

ü   Keep in mind that although your email reading software may show bold, italics, etc., your receiver’s software may not.  This could confuse some of your message.

ü   Example:

                           Katie- Great job on your poetry assignment!  I was really                      

                           impressed.

          May actually read

                           Katie- <I>Great job <I> on your poetry assignment! I  

                           Was <U>really<U> impressed.

ü   This email would confuse the reader and distract from your message, so be aware of this when you use fancy text in your email. 

  1. Web Links

ü   Some email reading software will recognize URLs (Uniform Resource Locators, or web addresses) in the text and make them "live". While some software recognizes URLs from the "www.", most software recognizes URLs by the http:// at the front. Thus, if there is a URL in your email, it is much safer to include the http://!

ü   Example:

                             Hey!  Check out the site

                                       http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.html

                              to find out information about writing effective email. 

ü   You can also enclose the URL in angle brackets to make sure your reader sees and copy/pastes the entire address. 

ü   Example: 

                             Hey!  Check out the site

                             <http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.html>

                              to find out information about writing effective email. 

  1.   Attachments

ü   Some mailers support "attachments", where you can specify a document to send through email. This allows people to share essentially any file in any format.  If your correspondent has a mail reader that can handle attachments, this can work very well: a long attachment can be looked at later. However, if your correspondent's email software doesn't understand attachments and you send a non-text file (like a Word document, a binary, a picture, or even compressed text), be advised that it will appear as lots of garbage.

ü   Also be aware that even if your correspondents can receive and view the attachment you send them, if they are low on disk space or dial in from home to get their email, they will not be happy to receive a 200MB video, no matter how funny it is.  It’s better to post large documents on the web and email your reader the URL. 

  1.  Shorter Paragraphs

ü   Frequently email messages will be read in a document window with scrollbars. While scrollbars are nice, it makes it harder to visually track long paragraphs. Consider breaking up your paragraphs into only a few sentences. 

ü   Don’t worry that your paragraphs are shorter and the flow choppier than normal letter writing.  This makes the format of the message easier for your reader to follow and understand.

  1.   Line Length

ü   Some software to read mail does not automatically wrap (adjust what words go on what line). This means that if there is a mismatch between your software's and your correspondent's in how they wrap lines, your correspondent may end up with a message that is too long and difficult to read/see. 

ü   Therefore, you should try to keep your lines under seventy characters long. Why seventy and not, say, seventy-six? Because you should leave a little room for the indentation or quote marks your correspondents may want if they need to quote pieces of your message in their replies.

  1.   Terser Prose

ü   Keep it short. If they want more information, they can ask for it. (Also note that some of your correspondents may be charged by the kilobyte and/or have limits on how much disk space their email can use!)

ü   The fewer the people there are on the recipient list, the shorter the message should be.  Books to thousands of people are tens of thousands of words long. Speeches in front of large groups are thousands of words long. But you'd tune out someone at a party who said more than a hundred words at a time.

ü   Try to keep everything on one "page". In most cases, this means twenty-five lines of text.  This will make reading easier on your audience and will make it easier for them to understand your message.

  1.  Smileys

ü   A facial gesture can be represented with what is called a “smiley” or “emoticon”:  a textual drawing of a facial expression.  The most common three are

                                                 :-)

                                                 ;-)

                                  and         :-(

ü   While people will have slightly different interpretations of the exact difference between the upper two, my personal opinion is that the upper one means more "I'm happy" and the lower one means more "I think I'm being funny". The last one is pretty universally understood as "I'm sad".

ü   Using these gestures in your email can help your reader to understand your tone.  Unlike other methods of communication, the receiver cannot use cues like your tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. to understand your underlying meaning.  Using cues like this in your email can help your reader to see that.

  1.   Email Usage

ü   The final thing that people will look at is your use of email. If you do not give proper context, type only in capital letters, or use extremely long lines, people may assume that you are highly inexperienced with the medium. They may also assume that you are too stupid or stubborn to learn, since those are errors that are usually pointed out very rapidly (and not always gently) by experienced users.

ü   In addition to the composition of the email message, people will look at how appropriate the message was.  Was it sent to the right person?  Was it a reasonable question?  Think about these things before you send your message.  Check and double check to see that you are communicating in the best manner possible.  ***Keeping these tips in mind will make you a more effective user of these wonderful means of communication!