11/16/2014

Email Etiquettes
Anjum Fayyaz, SDSB LUMS

Professional E-mail Conduct

1.

Be informal, not sloppy; communicating with external

customers; follow standard writing protocol; traditional
spelling, grammar, & punctuation rules apply

2.

Keep messages brief and to the point; concentrate on

one subject per message

3.

Use sentence case;. USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

LOOKS AS IF YOU'RE SHOUTING. Using all lowercase
letters looks lazy. For emphasis, use asterisks or bold
formatting to emphasize important words. Do not,
however, use a lot of colors or graphics embedded in your
message, because not everyone uses an e-mail program
that can display them.

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Professional E-mail Conduct

4.

Use blind copy & courtesy copy appropriately;

Don't use BCC to keep others from seeing who you
copied; directly CC shows confidence; use BCC for
large distribution list; be cautious with your use of CC;
overuse clutters inboxes; copy to people directly involved

5.

Don't use e-mail to avoid personal contact; don't

forget value of face-to-face or voice communication

6.

E-mail isn't appropriate to send confusing or

emotional messages; speak with that person directly

7.

Don't use e-mail to avoid an uncomfortable

situation or to cover up a mistake

Professional E-mail Conduct

8.

E-mail isn't private; company property; retrieved,

examined, & used in court of law; e-mail not secure;
Never put in an e-mail which you wouldn't put on
postcard; e-mail can be forwarded to unintended
audiences; always keep content professional to avoid
embarrassment

9.

Be sparing with group e-mail; send group e-mail only

when useful to every recipient; use "reply all only when
require collective input; recipients annoyed to open an email that says only "Me too!"

10. Use

subject field to indicate content and purpose;

Don't just say, "Hi!" or "From Laura.

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Professional E-mail Conduct

11. Agree

on acronyms; identify actions; can use <AR>

for "Action Required; <MSR> for Monthly Status Report

12. Good

practice to include word "Long" in subject

field; recipient knows; message will take time to read

13. Don't

send chain letters, virus warnings, junk mail;

annoying stream of jokes; request to be removed from list

14. Tone

can't be heard in e-mail; no sarcasm in e-mail;

recipient take it wrong way; e-mail can't convey nuances
of verbal; to infer tone of voice; use emoticons sparingly;
unprofessional; smiley never diffuse difficult message

Professional E-mail Conduct

15. Use

signature that includes contact info; ensure

that people know who you are; , contact info. include
mailing address, web site, & phone numbers

16. Summarize

long discussions; scrolling to

understand discussion; annoying; highlight or quote
relevant passage

17. Forwarding

or reposting message; do not change

wording; if repost a message to a group that you
received individually; ask authors permission; give
proper attribution