Two Simple Habits for More Professional Emails

Have you ever sent an email to someone you were trying to impress that you immediately wished you could take back? Perhaps you forgot to send the attachment. Or perhaps you realized after you sent it that you had a typo. Perhaps you included a supervisor in an inappropriate email forward. These kinds of things have happened to most of us, and we usually lament them because we realize we have made a bad impression. This article presents two simple habits to develop that will help you make sure your emails always make a good impression.

Habit #1: Change the way you view email
There is a great paradox with the way most people view an email. Most senders think of email as a strictly utilitarian tool; it exists to get things done. Ironically, most receivers view the email they receive as an online extension of the sender’s personality. Therefore, if your emails are terse, confusing, rude, offensive, or poorly written, the receiver tends to assume that email reflects the same personality traits in the sender—you.

In a world in which email is now the primary way by which people communicate, it is critical to your professional image that you shift your thinking about email. Learn to think of your emails as an online representation of your professional (and/or personal) image. And assume that people make inferences about you based on the emails you send. Changing your view of email in this way will help you learn to edit your emails accordingly and make it easier to apply the tips provided in this article.

Habit #2: Follow your netiquette
Netiquette is a term for online etiquette. Once you accept your email practices as an extension of your online persona, the logical next step is to follow the same etiquette online as you do in person.

There are many things you can do to make sure your emails reflect the professional image you want to portray. Here are a few easy tips.

1. Proofread!

First and foremost, make sure your emails are error-free. This means proofreading your emails for typographical, grammatical, and spelling errors. If you are not confident in your grammar and spelling, the internet has no shortage of helpful resources. Here are just a few:

* Purdue OWL (online writing lab) offers quick, easy tips for all things grammatical.
* Grammar Girl is an excellent source for grammatical tips. You can even search for specific questions. If you have a grammar question, chances are you’ll find an answer here.
* Patricia O’Conner’s book, Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, is a wonderful book to have on hand no matter your grammatical skill level. She supplements all of her grammar tips with easy-to-remember, and often humorous, examples.

2. Swap the order in which you compose your emails.

Attach the attachment first.
Somewhere along the line, we all got into the habit of writing the email first, then attaching the attachment. Of course, the problem here is, when you are busy and hurried, you often forget to attach; then you have to follow up with that embarrassing “Oops!” email. There is no law that says you have to write the email content first. So when you know you have to send an attachment to someone, attach it first, then write the email. Make this a habit starting today, and you’ll never have to send that “Oops!” follow-up email again.

Don’t type the recipient's address until you’ve proofread your email.
When composing an email, do not include the addressee’s name in the “To” line until after you have typed and proofread your email. This forces you to make sure the email is perfect before your hand hurriedly clicks that “send” button or, even worse, you click “send” accidentally—perhaps even before you’ve finished composing!

Make it a habit to swap the order with which you’ve been traditionally creating emails. From now on, add the attachment first and the recipient last. This will save you a great deal of time and embarrassment.

3. Remember the receiver
When communicating online, it is so easy (and, all too often, convenient) to forget that there is a human being on the receiving end of that communication. Ask yourself this (and answer honestly): Have you ever sent an email to someone that said something you would never say to their face? Chances are, most people have. Albion.com suggests that you “remember the human”; in other words, remember the Golden Rule and ask yourself how you would feel if you had just received the email you are sending.

If you remember the receiver, most of the other emailing best practices should come pretty naturally. Emailreplies.com offers a whole host of tips for best practices, such as:

* Don’t use ALL CAPS. Even if you are in a hurry, people tend to read this as “yelling” (not to mention that SPAM blockers tend to filter emails containing all capital letters).
* Consider whether “Reply to all” is really necessary. Does every person who received the original email really need to see your response?
* Be careful of emoticons and abbreviations. This is especially true in today’s global workforce because many international recipients may not understand what “lol” or ;-) means.
* Do not use email to discuss confidential information. Many people in organizations have found this out the hard way. If you are unsure of whether something is too sensitive to discuss via email, choose the safe route and talk to the person face-to-face or on the telephone. Remember that emails are archived; that means they can be retrieved and the information could be potentially harmful to you or someone else. Take the time to make smart decisions about who and what you email.

Developing these two simple habits, and the behaviors that support them, will ensure that your emails represent the professional image you want to portray online.