This part of the email series will talk about some differences on communicating through text and emal.
With the instantaneous nature of email, it is easy to treat it like texting, but this is a mistake that should not be made. Email is more formal by nature than a text message.
As easy as it is to quickly draft or respond to an email, there are a few practices that will make you sound more professional and help keep you in the good graces of all of your contacts.
- Don’t use shorthand
TBH (to be honest) shorthand is simply harder to read. Emails are meant to be short, but to help convey information in a clear way. You may be sending emails to people who aren’t in the same generation as you, so they may not understand the lingo you are using.
By taking the time to type out all the words you want to say, you will sound more professional and leave no room for confusion for the person reading your email.
- Don’t include emojis.
Yes, smiley faces are cute and yes, they help to convey different emotions. However, emoticons have no place in your emails. They simply come across as childish and unprofessional, so it’s best to leave them out.
- Don’t send one word responses
No one likes one word responses. Just. Don’t. Do. It. If you don’t have more than one word to say, it’s probably not worth an email.
- Don’t put !!! at the end of your email
If you just won the lottery, exclamation points are acceptable. Other than that, it’s better to keep everything simple and use periods.
- Don’t use incomplete sentences
When you text it is easy to add commas between each new idea, but with email you want to keep everything more formal. Make sure that all your sentences are complete and make sense.
This is last of the, How to Conquer Email series! We hope that you have learned a few new things and are able to use some of the tips given.