Etiquette's of E-mail Writing

There are some basic ground rules to observe for business e-mail. Above all, be courteous. Remember that the recipient of your message is probably extremely busy. Be respectful, but don’t sound cloying. Put simply, show consideration for the person receiving the message.

If you are writing as a representative of your firm, especially to someone you don’t know, it’s best to err on the side of a more formal tone. This includes spelling out words and limiting your use of abbreviations.

Although you should aim for precision in all your communications, language is often clipped, capitalization is sometimes neglected, and abbreviations may pop up in informal e-mails. For example, many e-mail users dispense with capitalization in e-mails to recipients they know well, since writing in lowercase is much faster and easier—especially when using a handheld device such as a Treo or a BlackBerry.

Internet shorthand—using acronyms or abbreviations for common phrases, such as “TNT” for “till next time,” “TTYL” for “talk to you later,” or “SYS” for “see you soon”—is increasingly finding its way into e-mail business communication. But this abbreviated form of writing may be too casual and even playful for some work environments, so make sure that Internet shorthand is accepted in your organization before you use it.

Use abbreviations or acronyms only in your e-mail exchanges with coworkers or others who understand the lingo, and be sure you know what the terms you use stand for. Some might be a substitute for profane language, and some recipients may find them offensive.

When responding to several people at once, be careful about using the “Reply to all” option and inadvertently passing on other people’s e-mail addresses. Few things do worse damage to your business reputation than being careless with someone’s personal information.

Finally, don’t send a time-sensitive e-mail too late in the business day for people to respond to it, or so that you can put off discussing an important matter. Also, avoid sending messages when you know recipients may not have access to their accounts or will be unable to respond in a timely fashion. Your e-mail is going to be received in a much better spirit if it doesn’t seem strategically timed to the person’s disadvantage.

Dos and Don'ts during writing Business Emails:

Set an example for your employees and peers by practicing good e-mail etiquette (or “netiquette”).

• Do reply promptly to e-mails.
• Do be polite, but not verbose— make your point quickly.
• Don’t respond to chain letters.
• Don’t type in capital letters. It’s the e-mail equivalent of SHOUTING.
• Don’t include too many hyperlinks or elaborate formatting.
• Do be selective when sending replies to all recipients.
• Do use the blind carbon copy (bcc) function for an e-mail with a large distribution list to avoid publishing all the recipients’ addresses.
• Do close with an e-mail signature.
• Do not respond to a recipient in an e-mail on which you’ve been blind-copied.
  

E-Mail: The Evidence of Digital Communication

“There are managers so preoccupied with their e-mail messages that they never look up from their screens to see what’s happening in the non-digital world.”

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
author of Flow and Creativity

For most businesspeople, e-mail has become the most common form of written communication. Because many workers spend most of the day “wired” to computers, e-mail is the only way to reach them quickly and reliably.

In general, people use e-mail to quickly exchange time-sensitive information. E-mail is easy to use and removes the headache of printing out letters and stuffing envelopes. E-mail potentially enables managers to get more done in a single day than they would by chasing down the same information via phone or fax or waiting for letters to arrive in the mail.

E-Mail, the most common thing in today's world, is the main part of Digital Communication. Throughout the following some blog, we will discuss about e-mail, its importance, technique to write e-mail professionally.

COMMUNICATING VIA E-MAIL

E-mail stands for electronic mail, but you don’t need a wall outlet to be plugged in to work correspondence. In this wired world, your e-mail in-box no longer resides solely in your desktop computer, but instead travels wherever you, your laptop, or your hand held device go. E-mail is as likely to be crafted on a Black Berry during a bumpy cab ride as on a laptop in a quiet home office. The ease with which people can reach others through e-mail has resulted in far more information being exchanged than in the era of typewritten letters. This volume has its advantages and disadvantages.

E-mail is the most pervasive and useful communication tool to emerge since the telephone. A 2006 survey by the staffing company Office Team found that 71 percent of executives use e-mail as their preferred method of communication, whereas only 27 percent were doing so in 2001. Employees in most businesses use e-mail internally to set up meetings, ask for information, and exchange opinions and ideas. Organizations use e-mail externally to share information with business partners, investors, or customers. E-mail enables companies to swap vital information with suppliers and vendors, and makes it possible for geographically dispersed employees to collaborate in ways never before possible. Both you and your staff have little choice but to learn to express yourself effectively via e-mail.

Future Prediction: The Big Picture

According to Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, in the future, new technologies will make communication a multi-sensory experience of sight and sound. “Unified communications technologies will eliminate the barriers between the communications modes—e-mail, voice, web conferencing and more—that we use every day. They will enable us to close the gap between the devices we use to contact people when we need information and the applications and business processes where we use that information. The impact on productivity, creativity and collaboration will be profound,” predicts Gates.

You Can Increase Your Success By Writing With Purpose

Once you have a clear understanding of who your audience is, you need to answer the question: Why am I writing?

You may be writing an e-mail to ask an employee or coworker for information. Or you might be writing a report to convince your boss that increasing resources is necessary to complete a project on time. Figuring out the purpose of your communication will help you organize your writing, assess what kind of evidence or information you need to back up your statements, and determine the style and tone of your writing.

In general, most written business communications have one of two purposes: to request information or the resolution of an issue, or to persuade.

Writing to request or resolve. Open with a respectful greeting to the person you are addressing before quickly moving on to the purpose of the request. If you don’t know the proper contact name, make a quick telephone call to find it out, rather than using the generic “To whom it may concern.”

State the specific reason for writing in the first sentence of your document or letter. Be sure to supply identifying information of special relevance to your reader—a reference to a previous conversation or event, a document, customer order, invoice, or job number, etc. This gives context to your message and enables a reader to be reasonably assured it is valid, especially if you are contacting someone for the first time.

If you are hoping to resolve an issue, avoid sarcasm and accusations. Not only do you risk letting anger cloud your judgment, but you will not endear yourself to the very people who could solve your problem. If you do feel the need to express your dissatisfaction, use a civil tone and address the person respectfully. When sending an e-mail, keep in mind that it is a medium in which the tone of a message can be easily misinterpreted as sarcasm or disrespect.

Writing to persuade. Trying to get someone to come around to your way of thinking is never easy. It is decidedly more difficult using only the written word, which cannot communicate facial expressions or the inflections of voice that lend emphasis during a conversation. Nevertheless, crafting a convincing correspondence or report is possible. Your power of persuasion will be determined largely by your selection of words.

When crafting a persuasive message, experts say, one word is more powerful than all others: “You.” Don’t begin by talking about yourself. Instead, let the person on the receiving end take center stage. Connect your purpose in writing with the interests and needs of your reader.

For example, if you are writing to convince employees that their participation in a certain endeavor is needed, emphasize what is of value to your workforce. If overtime will be required, let them know it is a temporary situation and emphasize that it reflects positively on the company and hence on each person directly.

Let them know you sympathize, and offer some token of appreciation in return for their continued commitment.

If you are writing to customers, focus on how you or your product can help them meet their needs. Consider this letter:

Dear Mr. Expert,

Your name was provided by a colleague, Fred Smith. Fred suggested you might be interested in our digital pager, which will be unveiled at the Online Communication trade show in Chicago. If you are attending the show, I can make arrangements for you to get a trial version of the pager and determine if it meets the needs of your mobile workforce. Please let me know if I can help.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

John Doe
Marketing Manager

Although this letter does not guarantee a response, it offers Mr. Expert some compelling reasons to consider replying. First, the reference to someone he knows is a tip-off that it was sent by a credible source. Second, it spells out the reasons Mr. Chen might be interested in learning more about the product. It closes by offering him

Writing Skill To Develop In Career

Managers who write sloppy, unclear, or convoluted correspondence and documents do themselves no career favors.

Consider a 2004 survey by the Business Roundtable and the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, which found that 51 percent of all companies surveyed take candidates’ writing ability into account when considering them for a higher position. Moreover, the ability to write well could prove decisive when seeking a job. “People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion,” according to the report.

The bottom line? If you are serious about advancing your managerial career, polish your writing skills.

You Will Write For Whom: Audience Is The Right Answer

Try putting yourself in the shoes of the readers to whom you are directing your message. How will they react to the information? What information do they care most about? What do they need from you?

Knowing your audience will also help you determine the degree of formality with which you should write. For example, though contractions such as “I’ll” or “we’ll” were once considered casual shorthand for the proper terms “I shall,” “I will,” “we shall,” or “we will,” formal business writing no longer frowns upon their use. Although there are no hard-and-fast rules on using casual contractions, knowing who you are writing for should dictate whether to use them or not. If you are unsure, always err on the side of caution and avoid contractions and other less-formal conventions. Keep the stamp of professionalism uppermost in your mind.

In today’s global economy, with more and more companies outsourcing parts of their business functions to firms in other countries, communicating with colleagues and customers outside the United States has become common. When writing to an international business audience, be mindful that they tend to prefer more formal communications. For example, refrain from addressing overseas business contacts by their first names unless instructed otherwise; always use their full names, or address them by title and last name (“Ms. Jones,”“Mr. Smith”).

Dos and Don'ts During Writing For Your Audience

Keeping your audience in mind means being aware of and addressing their particular concerns.

• Do orient your message around the reader’s interests.
  

• Do determine the level of formality based on your audience.
  

• Do maintain a professional tone, even in less formal writing.
  

• Don’t forget to take cultural and language differences into consideration.
  

• Do invite readers to respond.

The Basics Of Communicating In Writing

The need to write clearly and thoughtfully arises in virtually every situation you face as a manager. Good writing, in fact, is one of the most highly prized competencies. An e-mail, memo, letter, or formal report each has its own special requirements, but fundamental principles apply to all business writing: planning before writing, using correct grammar, knowing your audience, understanding the purpose of your writing, striking the right tone, and revising and editing.

Research and Planning

Before you start writing, gather all the information required to craft an effective message. Consult whatever business intelligence you will need— such as sales forecasts, customer history, industry trends, and other applicable information—so you can back up your statements directly in your correspondence or report. For weighty matters, you may need to do more extensive research to buttress the points you intend to make.

“Think before you write. Nothing worthwhile yields to human effort without a plan.”

—L. E. Frailey,
author of Handbook of Business Letters

Whether research is needed depends greatly on your subject and the people to whom you are writing. Doing research at a library or performing a detailed search using the Internet is usually sufficient to back up your points with hard facts. In communications within a department or organization, such research may be unnecessary. But supporting your correspondence or sales materials to prospective customers with relevant business information helps win their confidence and can help generate new business.

Before you write, map out the information you plan to share and why you are doing so. Start by jotting down notes on paper and then highlighting the key issues you want to emphasize.

Dos and don'ts

NOTE-TAKING BASICS

Distilling the most important information from a mass of material is easier if you work efficiently and deliberately.

Here are some pointers:

• Don’t frustrate yourself with excessive research.
  

• Do jot down only the most pertinent information.
  

• Don’t write sloppily and assume you will be able to read your handwriting later.
  

• Don’t write complete sentences while taking notes (unless needed for clarification). Instead, jot down phrases.
  

• Do use abbreviations, as long as you can understand them. Example:“$3K” instead of “3,000 dollars.”
  

• Do write special comments in the margins for later reference.
  

The note-taking process is helpful in two ways. First, the act of writing itself tends to stimulate ideas or concepts you had not previously considered—scholars call this “emergent information.” Second, seeing ideas in front of you makes it easier to sort out the most essential details and organize them in a logical order. Keep similar items and ideas together. This will help you recognize repetition or determine in what form the information can best be communicated.

Grammar, Language, and Style

Regardless of the form in which you are writing—say, a casual e-mail, a formal letter, or a report—you should always aim to write with clarity and simplicity. For example, rather than writing that your company is “interested in aligning the potentialities of your company with our long-standing reputation as a global innovator,” write that your company “has a strong reputation as an innovator. We should discuss how we can benefit each other by joining forces.”

In writing, less is often more—keep it short and to the point. Always use correct grammar and accurate language.

Rules of grammar and writing were developed so that we could all understand one another. In contexts where accurate and respectful communication is important, these rules can assume greater weight than they do in day-to-day affairs. Some people are sticklers for minutiae when reading business correspondence. Here are some of the most common mistakes writers make:

Wrong use of contractions. “It’s” is a contraction for “it is.” “Its” (no apostrophe) indicates the possessive case of the impersonal pronoun. For example:

The hotline number is now operating. Its purpose is to provide better communication with our customers. It’s imperative that all messages left on the hotline be answered within one business day.

The contraction “they’re” and the plural possessive “their” are also often used incorrectly. The
following example illustrates the misuses of “it’s” and “they’re”:

The company is sending out it’s orders today. Customers should receive they’re orders next week.


Written correctly:

The company is sending out its orders today. Customers should receive their orders next week.

Overuse of commas and comma splicing. Commas can be used as pauses between major ideas in sentences. If possible, keep them to a minimum. Also, do not string or splice together complete sentences with only a comma when a logical connecting word or phrase is needed. “I think, I am” is a comma splice. The missing word makes all the difference: “I think, therefore I am.”

Failure to hyphenate properly. A “small business problem” is quite different from a “small-business problem.” Written without hyphens, the phrase would not be clear. Is the problem a small one or is it one typically found in small businesses? In general, two nouns used together to modify another noun are hyphenated (for example, time-management skills).

Less versus fewer. Use “less” for entities that are difficult or impossible to count—snow, rain, time, money. Use “fewer” for terms that can be counted—meetings, managers, machines. Keep in mind these particular correct usages: “We spent less money this month” and “the newer
machines take fewer coins.”

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter— ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

—Mark Twain,
American author

Which versus that. These two words introduce a clause that describes a noun. Using “that” indicates the clause is “essential”; it is vital to the sentence’s meaning, providing specific information. For example, “The memo that addresses purchase orders needs to be sent today.” But introducing the clause with “which,” offset by commas, indicates the clause is “nonessential.”

For example, “The memo, which addresses purchase orders, needs to be sent today.” In this sentence, the nonessential clause “which addresses purchase orders” could be deleted without losing the point of the sentence: “The memo needs to be sent today.”

Redundancies are redundant. All history is past history. All completions are finalized.

Some phrases make no sense when you think about them, or they mean something that was never intended. How often have you read that a “first annual” golf tournament was being held? If the event is intended to be annual, say so. Until it has actually become a yearly occurrence, however, use “first-ever,” “inaugural,”or “debut” instead. Also beware of “close proximity.” By definition, two businesses in “proximity” to each other are nearby; “close proximity” suggests that they are even closer.

Communicating Clearly In Writing: Important To Achieve Success

“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”

—Lee Iacocca,
former CEO of Chrysler

What is your game plan, and does your team know it? Just like a coach in sports, you as manager are charged with guiding a team of individuals toward its collective goal. Successful execution depends on your capacity to communicate this game plan clearly.

You need to be sure all team members read from the same playbook. Each player’s role and responsibilities must be meticulously defined. The coaching and instruction you give must be delivered accurately and with the right timing. Nothing good happens if communication falters. A championship-caliber game plan is worthless if the coach sends the wrong signals to the players.

If you are reading this blog to improve your ability to communicate, you obviously see the link between strong communication skills and career success. Here, you will find advice for developing your own “communications playbook.” It is not intended to be exhaustive, and its aim is simple: to provide digestible bites of information to help you gain confidence and master the art of both written and oral communication. No matter how high-tech and diverse communication technologies become, they can reach their full potential only when used by a good writer or speaker.