Treating Every Email With Care Can Avoid Embarrassment

Posted: January 07, 2014

Almost everyone knows to watch what they say on Twitter or Facebook, but may not give the same consideration to composing an email. When communicating via email, it's just as important to give careful thought to what is written, or it may become an embarrassing situation. These steps refresh the rules of professional email communication - from choosing your email address, to the content, to the closing.

Maeve Maddox, Editor at Daily Writing Tips, reminds us of email best practices.

The ease of dashing off an email is both a convenience and a deadly snare.

Emails are not as public as a Twitter tweet, but can lead to grief for the unwary. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the jokester who says something outrageous intended for the eyes of a friend, and then hits the “Reply All” button by mistake.

Because there’s always the chance that an email might go astray, the best practice is what I call the “Klingon rule”: Don’t say anything in an email that you don’t want a third party to read. (I think it was General Chang in StarTrek VI who said he never uttered anything he wouldn’t want to be overheard. Klingons are always under surveillance.)

One way to avoid embarrassing situations with clients or employers is to make a habit of treating every email with care, even the ones you dash off to your friends. Human frailty being what it is, there’s probably no way to avoid saying or typing something stupid at some time or another, but a few tips can save some embarrassment.

Common courtesy is the key to writing an email that won’t come back to bite you.

Courtesy when writing an email means considering such things as the fact that not everyone can read tiny type or understand texting abbreviations. Depending upon the recipient, sloppy English or attempts at humor can prove deal breakers. In these tippy-toe times of political correctness, it doesn’t take much to offend some people. No one, however, is likely to take offence at standard usage and conventional formatting.

Email Address
A snappy email handle may amuse your friends, but if you use your account for business as well as social correspondence, you may want to avoid choosing a handle like redhotpapa or partygirl. As the first thing the recipient sees, it can affect the spirit in which the message is received.

Read the entire article, Email Matters, at DailyWritingTips.