TIPS FOR WRITING E-MAILS THAT WORK!

• Does it pass the Newspaper Test?
  This is worth considering before sending any e-mail. just ask yourself how you would feel if it appeared the next day on the front page of yur local newspaper. (A couple of years ago a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer published transcripts of internal voice mails from a local company.

• Did You Stick to the Facts?
  if yu limit your statements to facts rather than opinion youwon't have a problem. From a legal point of view, anything other than factual statements (speculation or even inferences) can wind up sounding like a statement of policy rather than your personl views.

• Do You Think A Disclaimer Will Protect You?
  If so, you're wrong. Putting statements like "Privileged" or "Private" at the top of an e-mail doesn’t make it so. Unless you're a lawyer, you should assume that your messages is not privileged and write accordingly.

• Did You Know that Most E-mail is Saved?
  Most e-mail programs create folders where e-mails are stored and most people don't often go back to the stored e-mails and delete them. And if you use an external e-mail service (e.g. Yahoo, HotMail, etc.) you probably don't have any control over this. So make sure you empty your e-mail folders at least quarterly. Get rid of anything that is no longer needed

And here are some ideas which can help improve your e-mail productivity.

• Organize
  Use the SUBJECT line of your e-mail to make a brief descriptive statement of the issue presented. This makes it much easier for readers to decide if they want to bother with it and increases the likelihood that they WILL read it.

• Summarize
  Begin the e-mail with a longer statement of the issue and the conclusion or requested action. Again, this helps the reader decide if he or she needs to go further and helps YOU to organize your thoughts

• Be Brief
  Use short sentences. Watch out for the usual grammatical errors which can cause confusion.(See The Basics of Composition in Dr. Write's Infirmary Pages for more on that.) Sentence fragments are fine if they communicate, but most os us create them unintentionally and then wonder why we were misunderstood. remember that the nice thing about e-mail is that you can look at what you said before you send it.

• One Screen is Enough
  Most e-mails shouldn't fill more than one screen. This expedites reading and prooves that the sender thought about what was said before sending.

• Be careful with Readability Tools Today’s e-mail software makes it easy to use headings, underscoring, bold face, italics, bullets and the like which are intended to make documents easier to read. But don't overdo it. While an unbroken page of text is hard to read, a page filled with bold faced bullets can be just as distracting. Use the available word processing features carefully and they'll make the logic of your message clear and the readability easier.

• Edit
  Like we said before, the beauty of e-mail is that you can go back and fix it before you hit the SEND button. So take that extra moment to read, clarify, shorten and reconsider before sending the message. Ask yourself if the message is really necessary (sometimes a phone call is faster and better), and it is consistent with these guidelines.

• Think About Multiple Addressees
  A common mistake e-malers make on a message received as part of a grup is to hit REPLY and send the reply to everyone in the group. (For example, you get an invitation to a meeting and reply "I'll be there!" and the reply goes to everyone else. when it only needed to go to the sender.)

• Consider Who You Copy
  Like the previous problem, copying others on an e-mail should be considered carefully. Not everyone you know needs t know.

• Use Auto Signature
  many e-mail programs have an Auto Signature feature which automatically appends predetermined text to every message: your name, your telephone and fax number, a quote you like, etc. It saves you time and assures that everyone receiving your message gets the information about you they may need i order to reply.

• Attachments
  Avoid them. Even if you have to write in another software program, copy the final product and paste it into your e-mail. Most viruses are spread through attachments and e-mail programs handle them differently so that, in some cases, they get lost or corrupted.

And here are some aditional sources for help with writing e-mails.

• The Connecticut State Government's E-Mail Etiquette Guidelines
• The University of British Columbia's Electronic Mail Guidelines
• An Article from Interactive Week (for June 24, 1996) on Junk E-Mail
• The MFM Company's E-Mail Guidelines [A Large Document]
• Lee College's E-Mail Guidelines
• Richard Waller's E-Mail Guidelines [He's a web site consultant]
• from Two Computer Guys E-Mail Guidelines and Tips