I send a lot of emails, I receive a lot of emails, I compose a lot of emails, and I reply to a lot of emails. Like many in this information age, I live vicariously through email instead of other forms of communication. A fair-sized chunk of my day involves reading, replying, writing and sending emails.
In an effort to make my life a little easier, and hopefully save some of you from looking like fools, I am going to explain some basic rules that should be applied when you email. Some people apparently really need this help. Really, really REALLY need this help.
The first thing you need to be concerned about is the name from which your email account is being sent from. When you receive a message from T-Bone, ???, ~*Jen*~, Cutie Baby, AnThOnY, or Oreo666 you will automatically make assumptions (and mostly bad ones) about the sender. The name should have your first name and last initial, your first initial and last name, or your first and last name. There should be no numbers, no weird capitalizations, and no symbols. Anything otherwise suggests immaturity.
Of course, you could bypass this problem entirely when emailing potential employers, professors, TA’s, your grandmother, departments or professional organizations by having a “grown up” email. Now I know you may be tempted to keep the email you’ve had since eighth grade for nostalgic reasons, but save that email for MSN or your friends, and not for who I just mentioned. Again, this will cause negative connotations about yourself which can be unfavourable to you. A really good one to use is a combination of your first and last name. If that is taken, you can add underscores, periods or even a number (but not 69, 666, or the year you were born) to amend that.
I think that may actually be the purpose of the muss email accounts McMaster gives us. So if you are an incoming first year you can start using that email account in about a month. If you're an upper year you can remember that you have one and use it on a regular basis. I personally hate my Mac email account, and use it only when profs demand I follow the "rules" and do so.
And now comes the text of the email...
Remember, this is an email, not a conversation on MSN. You should not be using emoticons, or MSN colloquialisms. LOL,
, WTF, 
, BRB, <3 src="http://www.macinsiders.com/images/smilies/wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" class="inlineimg" border="0"> should all be stricken from your “vocabulary”. I of course use vocabulary loosely, as none of those are technically words, but abbreviations at best.Remember that thing they taught you in first grade called sentence structure? You can apply it here too. Actually, I suggest you do so because avoiding it makes you sound like an idiot. A few years after they taught us how to write in coherent sentences they taught us how to write in paragraphs. This is also something that can be applied in an email. Remember, if your subject changes, it deserves a new paragraph! Funny, sometimes school actually teaches us useful things.
All emails should really follow the same sort of format. First, you would want some sort of greeting, such as hello. You can use Hey or Hi, but they are best if you know who you are contacting. Second, you want to introduce why you are sending the email. Third, you are going to write the text of the email as per the subject. Again, if you have multiple topics you wish to cover, you should be breaking the email up into multiple paragraphs. Fourth, if someone is doing you a favour or answering a question, you should thank them. Fifth, you end the email with some sort of salutation followed by your name. Cheers, regards, and sincerely work well. Peace makes you sound like a California hippie, and later just makes you sound dumb.
There, now you have composed an email. Now, you should go back to the beginning and read it over to ensure there are no spelling or grammatical errors. You don’t want to look like a tool by using the wrong to/too/two or there/their/they’re. Once everything looks good and makes sense you can hit send.
I have a few other tips in terms of writing emails, and both have to do with names. Although my name is fairly common, it is often misspelled. I am called Daniel and Daniella more often than one would think. I find it very irritating, and I am sure others with their names misspelled do as well.
Secondly, do not ever assume someone’s gender when you are forwarding, CC-ing, or replying to an email. Again, when they get called opposite to what gender they identify as they will get angry at you. I had an administrative assistant from another university call me ‘he’. I was not impressed and had a word with the program director. Remember, assuming makes an ass out of u and me. (Yes, I am THAT lame and said that). If the name really is that difficult to spell, use ctrl + c and cut and paste it.
Lastly, unless you have explicitly told not to do so, make sure you include someone’s title in an email. Some profs get really irritated if you do not add ‘Doctor’ or ‘Professor’ in front of their last name. Some prefer you call them by their first name. However, it is best to err on the side of caution and be too formal rather than informal. ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ are also appropriate, but again you must know their gender orientation as I mentioned previously.
And there you have an email that won’t make me, as well as a variety of other people, crazy. So if you are ever in the same position as myself and receive some sub-par emails, please send the perpetrator this article in reply. It would make my day.
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