How to write an email that will get you what you want

Most of my day-to-day social and professional interactions take place over email. It's my primary form of direct, one-on-one contact with students, colleagues, and co-authors. Consequently, my impressions of people are shaped by their emails. Are their emails polite or demanding? Clear or confusing? For good or ill, I judge people by the emails they send.

Based on my own personal experience, I am not alone. Others have judged me by the emails I have sent. I once lost someone's friendship because of a misjudged bcc. I am no expert on the right way to send emails.

But I have learned a thing or two from sending and receiving tens of thousands of emails, good and bad. One is that the ultimate goal of most email senders is to ask - clearly, politely and respectfully - for something. This post offers my personal reflections on how to achieve that goal.

1. Every email is written for a reason. An effective email puts that reason in the subject heading. Looking through my inbox, I can see "Library Presentation on Accessing Economics Data - TOMORROW" or "VICE Canada - seeking comment re: Trump". These subject lines tell me pretty much exactly what the emails are about. This means I can deal with them efficiently and quickly, which maximizes the chances that the senders will get what they want.
2. Every email is written to someone. The greeting line is an opportunity to acknowledge that someone, and show them some respect. Here are some possible ways of beginning an email, starting with the most formal, and going to the least formal:
   • Dear Professor Woolley (for university professors) or
   • Dear Ms Woolley (when directing business correspondence to a woman) or
   • Dear Mr Woolley (when directing business correspondence to a man)
   • Dear Frances
   • Frances -
   • Hi Frances
   • Hi prof

Formality conveys respect so, when in doubt, it's best to opt for a relatively formal greeting. Being excessively formal almost never causes offence, but being overly familiar can be seen as rude and disrespectful. This is especially true (a)  in a professional environment, and (b) when writing to a person who has power over you (a potential employer, referee, professor, guest speaker, etc) and (c) when writing to someone older.

University professors will often tell students how they would like to be addressed. Some put it on the course outline. Some tell students directly. Professors will often sign emails with the name that they want students to use. If I want someone to call me Frances, I'll sign my emails to them "Frances". If I want someone to call me "Professor Woolley", I'll sign my emails to them "Prof. Woolley". 

The greeting line is particularly treacherous for people from other cultures. "Dear Woolley" is a dead give away that you are not a native English language speaker (either "Dear Frances" or "Dear Ms Woolley" would be the usual North American greeting). "Ma'am" is not used in North American English. Calling someone "Mr" when she is a "Ms" or calling someone "Mrs" when she is a "Professor" is an unfortunate, and avoidable, mistake. It is worth taking time to search for information about a person's gender and title, and use the appropriate honorific (Mr or Ms or Prof).

Group emails can be hard to address. But here too the greeting line is an opportunity to make people feel valued and part of a group by saying something like "Colleagues" or "Dear WCI contributors". Why waste an opportunity, no matter how trivial seeming?

3. Taking time to capitalize, insert proper punctuation, and spell words correctly shows that you care about the person you are writing to. Just about everybody likes to feel that other people care about them.

Moreover, sometimes - for example, when writing to a potential employer - it's important to demonstrate knowledge of proper capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and so on.  Once I was hiring for a data entry position. The only skill the position needed was accuracy. One applicant spelled my name incorrectly. They did not get hired.

4. If you state clearly what you want, you are more likely to get it. I just received the following email:

Hello,

Please find attached the Call for Applications for the __________ Programme. The deadline for applications is January 31st, 2017.

I have created a powerpoint describing the programme and can provide that upon request.

I would also be very happy to discuss the program with potential applicants and put them in touch with current interns and alumni.

All the best,
A___

Every word in this email is clear and precise, but at the end I'm left wondering what does A___ actually want me to do? Does she want me to share this information with students? If so, which ones (first years, fourth years, MAs...)?

Meghan Duffy, over at Dynamic Ecology, has a good post arguing that "...avoiding unnecessary vagueness in emails is one pretty straightforward, simple thing that people can do to make academia friendlier to everyone." She gives, as an example, the anxiety created by a vague request such as, "Is there a good time to discuss this?" - a request that may leave the recipient lying awake at night wondering "Why does he want to discuss this? What have I done wrong? What's going on here?"

It's a good idea, after writing an email, to re-read it, and ask yourself, "Have I made it clear what I'm asking for in this email"?

5. Appreciation never goes amiss. Saying "please" and "thank you" is a good beginning. Specific praise can make someone's day. In my experience, the most successful and busy people are the ones who are most likely to write and say "thank you" when someone does something special for them.

6. It can be hard to know how to end an email. Here is a non-random sample of closing lines from my inbox:

•     Cheers [Update: this is relatively informal and very British sounding, so should be used with caution.]
•     Best
•     Talk to you soon
•     Kind regards
•     Sincerely
•     Best regards
•     Thanks

    Whatever you choose, add your name, and then an electronic signature.

Again, the best guide is to think about the recipient - what is it that they need to hear from you? Is it clear from your closing that you are thinking of them, appreciative of what they are doing for you, and wishing them well? Then you're on the right track. 

The language is constantly evolving.  In the typewriter era, "yours sincerely" used to be a standard way of ending a letter. Now it is only used in very formal correspondence. What is polite and respectful changes over time. But what stays constant is this: asking for what you want politely, clearly, and respectfully is a good way to get it.

Comments

[Nick Rowe]

Yep. One of the common mistakes I see from students is having nothing at all in the subject line. There's a risk I will delete it as spam.

When I sent my first email, back in the mid-1980's IIRC, I sent it CAPSLOCK. Undergrad administrator, to whom I had sent it, congratulated me on sending it, then explained I was shouting.

[rsj]

I always thought "Please find the attached document X" to be somewhat baroque and wasteful.

Should I start looking around for something? Maybe under my chair?

And why "please"? I get using please when you are asking for something, but a movement of the eye to the attachment is not worthy of a "please", anymore than saying "Please remember to scroll down, should this email not fit on your screen in its entirety". I think at this point people know about attachments.

Also, I'm a fan of not ending an email, unless there is a logical ending statement. It's usually superfluous as the FROM is right there.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/the-best-e-mail-signature-is-actually-the-worst

IMO, it's more polite to write your message carefully so that there is a high information/length ratio and baroque phrasing is left out. That takes a lot of work on the part of the sender and respects the receiver's attention.

[Donald A. Coffin]

Thanks, Frances. This is all useful advice.

I have often suggested to my students--especially those who are not using a university email account that assigns them names--to consider carefully what email addresses they use. I once had a student ask me, at the end of a semester, why I never responded to her emails. I asked what her email address was (and I am not making this up; keep in mind that this dates to about 1991 or so, when "interesting" email addresses were considered, well, interesting), and she told me...sexylegs88@XXXXX.com. I told her I had not opened them, expecting them to be spam of one sort or another.

Also, this advice is something that grad students entering the job market should take to heart.

[Frances Woolley]

rsj - I always thought "Please find the attached document X" to be somewhat baroque and wasteful.

My absolute number one pet peeve with email is unnecessary attachments. E.g. when there's a 5 item agenda for a meeting, and people attach the agenda instead of including it in the body of the email. And "please" can come off as bossy - I think that's one reason why people sometimes don't use it.

"it's more polite to write your message carefully so that there is a high information/length ratio and baroque phrasing is left out"

I agree on the high information/length ratio (excessively long emails are my #1 email sin). As an administrator I would encounter some people who would draft long emails that went on and on explaining why it was necessary for every faculty member to do XYZ. To which my reaction is "just tell me what I have to do and I'll do it - don't waste any more of my time than you're doing already."

At the same time, I would argue that it's important to contextualize requests. So, for example "I looked in the course outline, and I couldn't see when the descriptive statistics assignment is due - the other due dates seem to be there, but not that one. Could you please tell me when it's due" is infinitely superior to "Could you please tell me when the descriptive statistics assignment is due?" - which is in turn much better than "When is the descriptive statistics assignment due?"

[Frances Woolley]

Nick - one thing that's hard for me to remember - and hard for my students to comprehend - that the meaning of email for me is totally different from the meaning of email for them. In the 1980s, and even the early 1990s, it was this amazingly cool thing and you could keep in touch with people all over the world at any time. There was nothing like it. It was magic. Now email is this boring thing that you have to do for work, and all the cool kids do Snapchat or Instagram or Whatsapp or Whatever.

[rsj]

^^^Yes, contextualizing is often important! Just making curt requests is rude.

[Frances Woolley]

Donald - great story!

I don't know if students realize how much profs sort and filter their emails. So, e.g., if I want to check to see if a student has requested an extension, or I want to know how often they've been in touch to discuss their paper, I'll search on their name. If that name isn't part of their email, I won't find the message..

[Bob Smith]

Great post.

One of my pet peeves in the business environment is people who don't include their contact info in the signature line. Often I'll get an email from an associate and there will be a point I want to clarify or follow-up on that can be more expeditiously done by phone then by email. Sure, if need be I can look it up, but how hard would it be to include your phone number in your signature block?

[Christie]

Good advice but it glossed over my biggest pet peeve. If communication is part of your job description your electronic signature must include alternative ways to contact you and this should be attached to every email that comes out of your inbox, in my opinion!

[Frances Woolley]

Bob and Christie - totally agreed!

[Nick Rowe]

Reads Bob Smith's comment. Feels guilty. Tries to find how to add signature in Outlook. Fails. Feels inadequate.

[Frances Woolley]

Nick - are you around at lunch today? I'll drop by and give you a hand.

[Nick Rowe]

Frances: thanks. But I'm holed up at home today.

Isn't technology supposed to get *better* over time? It was easy to do signatures in Eudora.

[Phil Koop]

Nick: depends on what version of Outlook you have, but on recent versions,

1) Click on the File tab
2) Click on "Options" on the left-hand ribbon
3) Click on "Mail" on the left-hand ribbon
4) Click on the "Signatures..." button

Or, just type a phrase including "signature" in the "Tell me what you want to do" text box on the top ribbon (recent versions) or in Help (older versions.)

[Nick Rowe]

Done it! Thanks Phil. Couldn't find the File tab, but finally found Help ("?").

[Frances Woolley]

Nick -

This post: http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2014/08/why-is-business-software-so-bad.html

[Nick Rowe]

Frances: yep. And this case exemplifies your old post. We all had to switch to Outlook.

[Majromax]

> calling someone "Mrs" when she is a "Professor" is an unfortunate, and avoidable, mistake. It is worth taking time to search for information about a person's gender and title, and use the appropriate honorific (Mr or Ms or Prof).

This goes for more than just e-mail. Prof. Linsay Tedds had a recent-ish blog post about the use of "Mrs." versus "Prof." or "Dr." as a gender signifier in media. Tedds was quite rightly irked.

[Frances Woolley]

Majromax - thanks, I hadn't seen that. I have to say, I think the kind of reaction she described is more common in journalism than in academia.

After writing this post, I thought to myself, "Perhaps i should take a slightly less passive-aggressive approach with my students" and told them "I would rather be called Prof. Woolley". They were super-sweet, apologetic, and immediately switched to Prof. Woolley. It's understandable - several of my male colleagues who teach at the same level as I do ask students to use their first names, so the students just figured it was o.k. to call me by my first name too. But I wouldn't expect journalists to necessarily be quite so polite!