Tips for Communicating Effectively Through Email
Email is a formal and legal form of correspondence. Use email carefully in order to communicate effectively; it is easy to be misunderstood or create conflicts. Below are some tips and suggestions on communicating effectively through email.
- Address recipients by name or title: When sending a formal email, address the recipient properly by name or title as appropriate. For example, you may want to begin an email sent to a faculty as "Dear Dr. Jones," or "Professor Smith," If the email is sent to a group of people address them as "Dear Colleagues", or at least start with a greeting such as "Good morning" or "Greetings" so that the email does not sound rude or abrupt.
- Signature lines: Always include your full name at the end of your email messages. This is especially important if you use your NIU email as the recipients cannot recognize who the sender is from student IDs (Z-ID) or staff IDs. You may include other information such as your phone number along with your name, but be cautious when including quotes as part of your signature lines. Some quotes can be misunderstood and may be misconstrued to be related to the subject of the email.
- Subject Line: The subject line should be short but should be meaningful, so that the recipient can read the message quickly. Subject lines such as "Hello" or "Question" are not helpful because they do not provide information about the content of the email.
- Body: In the body of the message, get to the issue in the first line, if possible. If you would like the recipient to respond to something by a deadline, then say "This is to request your response on..........by month/date/year." If you bury the request in the middle or end of a long email, your recipient may not notice it.
- Tone: Exercise caution with the tone of your email messages, because it is easy for the reader to misunderstand your tone. For example, be careful when asking questions because something simple like "Why didn't you..." or "What do you mean by..." can be taken as either a friendly suggestion or as questioning someone authoritatively. Instead, use something like, "I would recommend you try..." or "Could you please explain..." which have a softer tone. Words such as "please", "would you", "thank you", etc., may also help to clarify the tone.
- Use of Capital Letters: Use proper sentence capitalization in your messages. Using only capital letters can be considered shouting or yelling, while all lower case looks informal. Do not forget to capitalize the first person "I" in sentences.
- Writing Style: Write your email messages in plain English, and do not use text messaging format with abbreviations such as "UR" for "You are" or "L8" for "late" or "cuz" for "because". An informal writing style will reflect poorly on you.
- Organization: Break long email messages into paragraphs or a numbered list so that it is easier for the reader to process the information. Long emails without breaks are difficult to read and understand.
- Clarity: Be clear and concise in what you want to say in an email, to reduce confusion. If you include dates or times, make sure they are accurate. Avoid general terms for time, like "Let's meet tomorrow" or "Let's meet next Monday" since they are both relative to when an email is opened. Instead, you may want to say, "Let's meet on Monday, August 6, at 3 p.m.," so the recipient has the correct and complete information.
- Responding to Email: It is recommended that you reply within 2 working days to any email message which requires a response, if it is not an emergency situation. If the response is complicated or will require more time, it is a good idea to let the sender know that the email has been received and that it would be responded within a certain number of days. Similarly, if you email someone, do not expect to receive a reply immediately or during weekends. Wait at least a few days before contacting the recipient again. Exercise caution when responding to a listserv posting or an email addressed to multiple recipients including yourself, and make sure that everyone should receive your response.
- Responding to Upsetting Email: If you receive an email from someone that upsets you, do not respond to it immediately. Setting aside an upsetting email for a day or two (if it is not an emergency) and reading it again may give you a different perspective and take the emotions out of the message. If you receive an inappropriate email from someone, do not automatically assume it is from that person. Email identities can be stolen and used without the owner's permission.
- Copying messages: Exercise caution when copying your messages to the recipients' supervisors, colleagues or others. Recipients may also be offended by messages copied unnecessarily to others. When blind-copying an email to someone, make sure the person receiving the blind copy does not reply to everyone addressed in that email. You may send a separate email to ensure that the blind copy recipient is aware that the earlier email was a blind copy. Email messages are also be subject to copyright, intellectual property and legal guidelines.
- Confidentiality: Please do not assume that just because you send an email confidentially, the recipient will also maintain its confidentiality. In some cases, recipients' office support or other staff may open and respond to email messages. Your email may also be forwarded to others without your knowledge or permission; be aware of such possibilities.
- Spelling and Grammar: Please proof-read and spell-check your email messages before sending them. Your email messages reflect on you!
- Sending Attachments: Please check with the recipient before sending email attachments from software that the recipient may or may not have. Not everyone may be familiar with or have the software to open ACCESS, MS-Project, or zipped files. Some email systems have size limits on file attachments, and will automatically remove or reject attachments which are too large.
- Archiving Email: Archive important email messages or copy them to yourself so that you have a backup of what you sent or received for later reference.
- Spams and Flames: Do not respond to spams, flames or unwanted solicitations. It may be better to send them to your email system administrator or block them than responding to them. In some cases, by responding you may get on the spammer's or flamers' email list.
- Accessibility: When sending email, exercise consideration for people with disabilities. Some recipients may not be able to process colored text, fancy fonts, embedded images, audio or video.
- Using non-NIU email systems: Always use NIU's email for communicating with faculty, staff, and campus units at NIU as email messages sent from non-NIU email systems could be construed as spam and be prevented from reaching recipients at NIU. If you must use a non-NIU email system for a particular reason, do not set up email accounts with names like "badboy@yahoo.com" or "cutegirl@hotmail.com", as such email names are not appropriate for professional communication.
Adapted from the following sources:
Contact
Murali Krishnamurthi, Ph.D.
Email: mkrishna@niu.edu
Office: Engineering Building 244
