Writing That Works, 3e_ How to Communicate Effectively in Business - Kenneth Roman [17]
If you’re sending several messages on unrelated topics, it’s often better to send separate e-mails. It’s no more work, and each message will be a lot easier to find and refer to.
While you cannot inflate your importance to the recipient, you can at least make clear who you are. E-mail addresses that are all numbers or signal your interests should show your name in the display in some way. (Among our fishing friends, we quickly identify troutsmith@emailserver, but can never remember who goes by dryflier@emailserver.) People learn quickly to delete junk mail. If a name doesn’t ring a bell, out goes the message.
It’s often useful to conclude with a signature that lists your phone, fax, and address. Title, too, if that helps. Many suggestions for this chapter came in e-mail signed:
Regards,
Scott Cutler
VP Advanced Technology & Chief Technology Officer
Compaq Computer Corporation, PC Products Group
[telephone]
Most e-mail packages allow users to set up and automatically append signatures like this to outgoing messages.
2. Cut to the point
We mean that literally. Cut. Cut ruthlessly.
Not just to save the reader’s time, but to get to the essence. E-mail is a different medium. Reading long memos on a PC screen is a pain; anything over one screen risks not being read (and is better sent as an attachment).
“I have never seen an e-mail message too short — most effective e-mails are short and very much to the point,” says Manny Fernandez, Chairman of the Gartner Group.
Try to take out 50 percent of what you’ve written. You’ll be amazed how your points leap out.
Someone asked Rodin how he could sculpt an elephant out of marble. It’s easy, he responded, “You just chip away everything that isn’t an elephant.” Chip away everything that isn’t your point.
“Keep it short and sweet” is the first e-mail principle at HBO. Their executives are told that people want fast answers to simple questions. Make it brief, but make it complete — “meaty, concise, and to the point,” as one of our best English teachers demanded.
As for abbreviations, although there is a whole library of clever ones for e-mail, we don’t recommend them. Beyond FYI, most are new slang not familiar to enough people.
3. Avoid e-mail tag
Some e-mail can be too short, in the sense that it doesn’t provide context. Responding without attaching or referring to the original message makes the reader search through Sent messages (if saved) to make sense of the reply.
“I’m available,” for example, should be “I’m available to speak at your meeting on the fourteenth.”
“Did you get my message regarding the meeting on the fourteenth? Can you come?” as opposed to “Did you get my message?”
It’s forgetting to set context that causes so much e-mail tag. If the writer sends a message and the reader has to ask for clarification, the e-mail points of contact have been doubled. Be clear about the purpose of your message. What do you want the reader to do?
If you expect a response, you may want to set a deadline so that the response is not at the reader’s inclination, which may be never.
4. Set the right tone of voice
E-mail is faceless and voiceless. The mood of the sender cannot be communicated by the inflection of a voice as on the telephone. E-messages are a different animal, subject to misinterpretation. Brief comments can come across as abrupt, terse questions as angry (“Where’s the memo on …?”).
Some people use punctuation mark combinations, known as “smileys” or “emoticons,” to convey the right tone. These take time to insert, are more used by teens than business, and not always understood.
The subject heading can be a good place to establish the tone you want.
Help! How do we reply?
Or,
Thanks a bunch, everybody!
Another place to suggest tone is the salutation. Some traditionalists