Writing Effective E-Mail

Greetings again. And belated good wishes to those who celebrate the festival Diwali.

Last week I received a confusing piece of e-mail. In my inbox, the sender was listed just as “GMail”. And the subject line consisted of only “10/24” (an abbreviation for the date).

Actually, the e-mail was from a student telling me that she would miss class. But because the sender name and subject line were so vague, I thought the message was advertising, and so I didn’t read it right away.

For many of us, e-mail is an important way to communicate. Using e-mail well can help us communicate effectively about our research and other subjects. Here are a few suggestions for making e-mail reader-friendly:

• Include an informative subject line. For example, if my student had used the subject line “Missing Class Today”, I would have known immediately what the message was about.
• Make sure your e-mail is set up to show your name correctly in recipients’ inboxes.
• Start positively. Even if the response is to something negative, such as a complaint, begin with positive words, such as “Thank you”.
• Keep paragraphs relatively short. Long paragraphs tend to be hard to read in e-mail. Therefore break your message into short paragraphs.
• Proofread your e-mail. Today, when hurriedly writing some e-mail, I typed “fellowshop” instead of “fellowship”. After sending the e-mail, I noticed the error. I should have proofread the message before sending it.

Do you have suggestions for communicating effectively by e-mail? If so, please post a comment.

Wishing you a good week— Barbara