Email Etiquette – Follow these 6 Rules and Send Emails in Style

| September 7, 2013 | 3 Comments

 

Email Etiquette

Sending emails has become a common practice in business as well as personal communications. Therefore, you must learn a few basic etiquettes that are followed in emails. If you fail to do this, you would be able to make sure that you are not making any mistakes and getting your message across well. There are many people who simply write their emails like they are writing informal letters. They do not care much about punctuation and some even go to the extent of writing it all in capital letters, just to make an impact on the readers. However, these are all incorrect measures. We present a few ways in which you can improve your email etiquette and become the master of online communication.

Email Etiquette in 6 Rules

Men on computer

Photo Credits @kensington_tech

  • Never send a message before reading – Whether you write an email or forward one, you must make sure that you read it completely before sending. This can save you from embarrassment in case there are any spelling mistakes or errors in the grammar.
  • Don’t write long emails – No matter what kind of a conversation you engage in, you must always try to keep your emails short. Though, personal emails can be slightly longer than the formal emails, you must still try to keep it as short as possible.
  • Pay attention to your subject line – This is the most striking part of an email and would prompt the readers to open it. This holds true for formal emails more than the personal emails. In any case, just write a short and simple subject that defines the content of your email well. This is very important email etiquette.
  • Don’t use fancy formatting in emai l- Not everybody would like to see emails that have different colors, underlines, emoticons or anything similar. Some people react negatively on this kind of mails. To be on a safe side, make sure there is lesser rich formatting. Sending plain text emails can also be a good choice.
  • Acknowledge the reception of mails – Many people would send you mails during a day and you would not be able to reply to them all in time. You can install some services that would send automated replies to the senders, so that they at least know that their mail has been received by you. Whenever you have time, reply to the mails. According to the email etiquette, you must never make it too late. Reply in 24 hours if possible.
  • Attachment etiquettes – Always scan the attachments with a good anti-virus program. Additionally, confirm from the receiver whether they want to receive the attachments. This case goes well when the attachment is large.
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3 Comments on "Email Etiquette – Follow these 6 Rules and Send Emails in Style"

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  1. Paul Karroum says:

    I must admit. Reading an e-mail before sending is defiantly the best advice out of this. It is very frustrating to see errors in an e-mail. Whats the rush? It’s an e-mail; take your time to check over grammar and spelling.

    • Grayson Lang says:

      I mean no offense by this, but I find humor in the irony of your comment since you used the word “defiantly” when you probably meant “definitely”.

    • Gerald says:

      Reading an email before sending is very important. Another helpful practice is a “delay of send” rule. Many email programs will enable you to build a rule that holds your email in the outbox for a specified amount of time (I use two minutes). Many times, after composing and sending an email, you realize that maybe you should add another addressee, change the subject line or possible not send the email at all. The delay rule gives you enough time for sober second thought and can save you from error followup or an embarrassing email.

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