مقدمات نوشتن و ادیت ای میل

Hi, and welcome to this lesson on organization, style, and editing choices. Getting these parts right can make your professional emails easy to read and understand. How many times have you opened an email, and it’s confusing to read? Maybe it’s poorly organized, sometimes it’s so full of unnecessary information that it’s difficult to decide what’s important about the email. Now that you have the basic elements of an email, I want to focus on how to be sure that the information you include is brief and clear. That way the reader can understand, and respond if necessary. First, let’s look at the value of being brief. People often try to put too much information into what they write. Therefore, it’s important that you carefully think about your most important elements in your message. Here’s the quote that can keep us focused on how to write emails. A wise woman once said, writing is 1% inspiration and 99% elimination. Have you ever thought about what it means to be cool? Not cool as opposed to hot, but cool, as in people you want to be around and do things with them. I have thought about this a lot, why? At times, people thought of me as cool. Other times, not so much. I wondered, why? What people often see as cool is when other people look original and different. Now, not everybody thinks the same people are cool, but that’s the common element. When you decide to just be yourself without worrying about what others think, that’s when you begin to be cool. How does this apply to email? The best way to write, and remain brief is to stick to your own words and your own message. Be sure you say only what is needed. When you use unnecessary words, you mess up the message. It looks awkward, and cluttered. When you right an email, sometimes leaving out the extra words is as important as the words you choose to leave in. We often add adjective, and adverbs, and filler words which are not necessary. Let me say that again, at this time with more words. Very often when we write, we put lots of extra words, like adjectives and adverbs, which when you really think about it, are very much unnecessary. Both sentences have the same message, but the first had less than half the words. This is how you make a message brief and clear. When you’re writing, act like you’re talking to someone you want to become friends with. In the start of a relationship we’re very careful about what we say. Afraid of doing something wrong, we’re more cautious with our words. That’s said, think of words as having value. Look at economics, when there’s a high supply of a product, the price is very low. Things that are rare, like gold and platinum, they’re expensive. Think of words in your email in the same way. Along the theme of the first lesson, here’s a do and a don’t. Don’t use the passive voice. Do focus on precision. Not passive, rather precise. Let’s look at the next example. Powerful emails are written by people, or people write powerful emails. Which one sounds more precise? The second one is the active voice, and is always clearer. Let’s examine this more closely. In English, there are two ways to express many thoughts, the active and the passive. Here’s the difference. When the verb is active, the subject performs the action. When the verb is passive, the subject receives the action. Here are some examples. Which one is the active voice? The first one is active. Which is the active here? Again, the first one. That’s why it’s more clear. Now, let’s focus on clarity. Your goal here is to be clear. When you write, make sure you’re keeping things in order. When announcing a meeting or an event, for instance, you will begin with the name of the event. This will be followed by when, and for how long the event will last. Finally, exactly where is this meeting? This can even be included in the name of the event. The key here is to be precise with the most important information. After you write the email, sit back and look at it carefully. Imagine that you’re getting the same email, will it give you all the needed information? Is it easy to understand? Finally, some words to avoid, must, should, demand, require, necessity. These are all strong words, and may seem harsh, or even rude to your reader. Go back to the idea I used earlier. Are these words you use when you’re first meeting someone you want as a friend? Are you likely to become friends with someone who starts to use these words towards you? My advice is use words that are neutral, and not forceful. Let’s look at a few examples to see which ones are clear, and easy to understand. In these two examples, look at the first one. The paragraphs are short, and the entire email is brief. In the second one, look how crowded with text, and overwhelming it is. I get emails like this all the time, and I rarely read them. If I want to read a book, I’ll buy one, or download something to read. So to recap, we looked at how it’s better to be brief, and be your own editor. Take a short break after writing, and then come back and really concentrate on words that can be taken out without losing or changing the meaning. We also need to remember to keep things in a logical order, so that the information is clear to your reader. Finally, we looked at words to avoid. We want to be certain to keep from the demanding, or using forceful words in our emails. Keep in mind how it would feel to you if someone emailed you, and said, you must do something. You should now be comfortable applying these rules to your emails.