Email Tips

OK the first thing that you need to know when you’re writing an email.

The first thing you need to think about is that the style you use should not always be the same.

You don’t want to use the same style for your friend that you do with.

For example a co-worker or a colleague.

So always think about before you get started writing an email.

Why am I writing this email.

What’s my purpose.

What’s the reason.

And then the style should follow that purpose.

If you’re trying to accomplish something for example by getting information you shouldn’t ask a lot of questions about unrelated things.

OK but you might do that if you’re writing a personal email.

You might ask some more general questions and the email might be longer if it’s more personal.

You might describe more things but if you’re writing a more professional e-mail if you add a lot of words that are unnecessary or you make a lot of extra points or say a lot then it’s possible that what you’re trying to get or maybe the question you’re trying to get answered may be missed.

So it’s important to keep in mind that generally a more casual email will be or can be more relaxed and longer and then a professional one should be shorter unless it needs to be longer for some specific reason.

But the goal should be to try to keep it as short and clean and efficient as possible.

So when you write a professional email try your best to be efficient.

Don’t waste space.

Keep it simple keep it really simple when you’re writing a personal e-mail.

Or maybe one that’s more casual.

You can have a bit more let’s call it flowery language.

Sometimes it’s called flowery language you can use extra you can say what you want to say.

You can tell a story whatever you want to do.

So they’re very different.

So the second one is to separate the purpose from the body.

In other words the body of the email is maybe the largest section maybe you’re answering someone else’s question and the body is your reply.

Basically what you’re saying but you want to know some things as well or you want to ask some questions in return you shouldn’t mix those questions in with the body.

If you’re writing as a way to get something from somebody make sure that separate from the main chunk of the email make sure that’s on its own.

So you have the you know you’re answering their e-mail here.

Then go down to lines and write your own question.

That’s what you want to know.

Don’t mix it in over here.

If there are three or four questions mixed in with this then they feel the other person who receives your e-mail feels exhausted.

Which question do I need to answer and they might just say I can’t find all those questions.

So it’s very important to separate those and that’s a general email tip.

Now when you’re writing a professional email you want to probably if you need something if you’re asking for something use a list.

We often say for example I would like the following.

So it’s clearly separate from everything else.

One two three or dash dash dash and those don’t even need to be full sentences.

That’s fine.

So whatever you want to get from the other side the person you’re writing to make sure that that is clearly separated from everything else.

Otherwise it may be missed.

So number one make sure the style fits your purpose.

Number two make sure what you would like.

The other person to reply to you about is separate from everything else in the email.

If you have other stuff in the email maybe it’s just that if it’s a very quick email that’s OK.

All right.

Tip number three if you’re writing an email to someone you want to be careful about when you use deer you probably know that some e-mails can begin with deer.

I want to say be careful with that.

When would you use deer.

Well you might use deer if you’re writing to someone you don’t know for the very first time and that person has a higher status or maybe you have absolutely no idea who they are.

You just have a name you say deer.

Dr. Stevens.

OK it’s the first communication.

It’s very formal or it’s very close.

If you’re writing a letter for example or a card to your grandmother then again you would use deer for that deer grandma.

So deer can be used affectionately for for example relatives who were very very close to and deer can also be used for very formal situations in which we don’t really know the other person we’re talking to.

However if you have an going relationship with them.

You emailed back and forth regularly.

Don’t use deer.

Just use Hi.

And then the name.

Hi Dr. Stevens.

Or just begin with Dr. Stevens.

Or you could say hello Dr. Stevens.

Hello Dr. Stevens.

OK so those are common.

Those are common.

Now we could use hay but not probably not for Dr. Stevens.

Hay is much more casual much more relaxed very casual.

So I just want you to be aware of deer and that it’s actually not as common as many people who are learning English may think it is our last tip is perfect punctuation.

What does that mean.

So these marks we use is called a period.

This is called a comma.

These marks that we use when we’re writing these are these are called punctuation.

We use them to mark our sentences and I just want to say if you’re going to write an email make sure it’s grammatically correct English speakers tend to be very sensitive to things that are not perfect.

If it’s easy to make them perfect writing that isn’t absolutely clear all right.

It’s OK but if you for example write in fact and then you have a space here comma space here I’d like to whatever blah blah blah.

OK it’s wrong it’s wrong and it’s obviously written by probably a non-native English speaker.

So all you have to do is learn the simple rules of punctuation and make sure that your email is perfect before you send it out.

There should be no space here.

There should be one space here.

OK so it should be in fact comma no space.

I’d like to add it’s the same for a period.

If we end a sentence at all Let’s imagine this is the end of a sentence.

However comma space I.

OK.

So we have the end of a sentence no space here.

One space here OK.

And then however capital letter at the beginning of the sentence.

Very important if this is a small h.

It looks like a text message very unprofessional.

No space here.

One space here and then I and I again should always be capitalized.

We can’t write it like that.

So this kind of basic stuff if you’re writing more professional emails and you’re communicating with people by email with incorrect basic punctuation and maybe for example not capitalizing I could capitalize not capitalizing I or the beginning of a sentence like that they might not read it.

I often get emails from people and sometimes if I see that someone has not taken the time to carefully read read through what they wrote and correct small things I go I think to myself This person doesn’t really care about communicating with me or else they would have taken the time to fix these are very basic these very basic things and they are very simple.

All you need to know basically is what I just said capitalize the beginning of a sentence I and have no spaces before a comma or a period or an exclamation or any other mark and one space after.

So make sure to make sure to read through your emails before you send them download a plug in called grammar Lee.

I’m not being paid by grammar Lee to say it.

It’s a good plug in.

It’s a good app.

You can you can download it.

I think for your computer.

But you can also have it as a plug in for for example Safari or Google Chrome and GRC and them a are they are why.

It’s awesome.

It can pick out the things that are incorrect and make your emails come across much more professionally.

OK.

So those are four tips to keep in mind when you are writing emails.

Now let’s go through a couple of examples.