There are a number of email dos and don'ts to be aware of to make sure email interactions are efficient and appropriate.
Take our Business Writing Training course for free.
See the Course Outline and RegisterBe respectful of other people's time by copying only those people who need to be copied, either because they have to take action as a result of the email or because they have to be aware of the issue being discussed in the email.
Do not address multiple topics in the same email. Instead, write separate emails with different subject lines. Reasons for this are:
Bcc, or blind carbon copy, allows you to copy a recipient into your email without those in the To and Cc fields knowing that the person was copied. There are a few reasons to use Bcc:
Just like in other forms of business writing, bullets and numbering should be applied in email messages to help make the content of your message easier to read, where appropriate.
Emails can easily be forwarded and new people can be copied into threads. As such, be very careful when including information that you might not want others to see in emails. Also, be aware that employers own employees' work email and are free to read it if they want to.
Always respond promptly to emails, even if it's simply to confirm receipt and let the sender know you won't have a chance to carefully read the email until a later time.
Webucator provides instructor-led training to students throughout the US and Canada. We have trained over 90,000 students from over 16,000 organizations on technologies such as Microsoft ASP.NET, Microsoft Office, XML, Windows, Java, Adobe, HTML5, JavaScript, Angular, and much more. Check out our complete course catalog.
Margaux Judge has worked as an e-learning editor and instructional designer for over ten years, writing and editing a wide variety of courses, from technical topics to soft skills. She has a Bachelor's degree in English and Textual Studies from Syracuse University and a Master's degree in Television Writing from Boston University.