E-mail
etiquette is often overlooked despite the fact that it plays an important role
in conveying a professional image.
E-mails
written to friends and family will be less formal and will not need to follow any
particular guidelines or rules, but when writing to someone at a professional
level the following guidelines and rules should be taken in to account.
- If you do not have an e-mail address that is business like, please create one, fear it will be to your detriment. Addresses such as ‘sexy girl, star girl, wifey, saved and sanctified’ are considered to be inappropriate. Your name is most appropriate to be used in creating an e-mail address.
2.
With reference to the example above:
a.
use a descriptive subject line; avoid
leaving it blank or putting an
irrelevant or general subject. Ensure that the
subject is appropriate.
b.
Address the recipient by name to add
a personal touch to your letter
and be sure to indicate the purpose of the
e-mail.
c.
DO NOT USE ALL CAPS!
d.
Avoid over using punctuation marks!!!!!!
e.
Avoid using abbreviations such as
IMHO (in my humble opinion) or TTYL
(talk to you later), not even if you
are familiar with the email recipient.
f.
Skip a line when starting a new paragraph. Avoid using tabs to signify
a new paragraph, different email programs read tabs
in different ways.
g.
If you are sending an attachment,
make note of it and describe what
the attachment is for in the body, some
people are very wary of
attachments due to the threat of computer viruses.
h.
Keep your emails as concise as possible without leaving out any
important information.
i.
Always leave a signature line, don't
assume the person already knows
who you are.
j.
Do not keep on sending the same
message to the same person over and
over again; if they
don't respond after a few days, send them an e-mail
inquiring
if they received your first email.
k.
Use spell check and proof read and
revise your letter after it is done.
l.
Use threads. If you get a message from someone and you are
going to
respond, don't send a new message, simply hit the reply option on
your
email, this keeps the original subject line with "Re:" in front of
it.
m. If you are sending out an email to a
large private list do not use
CC: (carbon copy) use BCC: (blind carbon copy) to
protect
the addresses of the recipients.
