Email Writing Format

 Fundamentals of Email Writing:

Emails are very popular today in the professional scenario and they form one of the important basis of business communication. The content in an email still needs to be professional and polished so that they carry a good image of you and your organization. As in an email, you cannot gauge the tone of the person reading the email, it might create miscommunication sometimes. The words that you choose might make you sound insensitive or rude and twist your intent.

 Essentials of an effective email:

Subject Lines

Try to be as specific as possible. One word subjects such as "Hi," "Question," or "FYI" are not informative and are not considered as a valid subject line. These don't give the reader an idea of how important your message is.

Greetings and Sign-offs

Greetings are one of the most important parts which people tend to ignore while drafting an email. Never start with your text, and don't stop at the end without a polite signature. Whenever you have any doubt, address someone more formally to avoid offending them. Some common ways to address your reader are:

(add a prefix like 'Dear', 'Hello' and 'Hi' before the name of the person) Some of the examples to illustrate good greetings are:

Dear Professor Vikas, Hello Ms. McMahon, Hi Mary Jane

If you don't know the name of the person you are addressing, or if the e-mail addresses a diverse group, try something generic, yet polite: The example may include the following:-

To whom it may concern,
Dear Members of the selection committee,
Hello everyone,

Your closing is extremely important because it lets the reader know who is contacting them. Always sign off with your name at the end of your e-mail. In case of an official mail, close it with a formal signature. If you don't know the reader well, you might also consider including your title and the organization you belong to;

For Example:
Linda Hopkins
Senior Research Associate
Bain and Company

For your closing, something brief but friendly, or perhaps just your name, will do for most correspondence:

Thank you,
Best wishes,
See you tomorrow,
Regards,

In case of a very formal message, such as a job application, use the kind of closing that you might see in a business letter:

Sincerely
Respectfully yours,

Cc: and Bcc: ('carbon copy' and 'blind carbon copy')

Copying individuals on an e-mail is a good courtesy to send your message to the main recipient while also sending someone else a copy at the same time. This can be useful if you want to convey the same message to more than one person. This can be very significant especially when you are dealing with a professional official environment. Please note that when you send a message to more than one address using the

• Cc: field, both the original recipient and all the recipients of the carbon copies can see all the e-mail addresses in the To: and Cc: fields. Each person who receives the message will be able to see the addresses of everyone else who received it.


• Blind copying e-mails to a group of people can be useful when you don't want everyone on the list to have each other's e-mail addresses. The only recipient address that will be visible to all recipients is the one in the To: field. This can be useful while sending questionnaires or surveys.

Email stands for electronic mail. It is one of the most preferred means of communication because it is cheaper and faster. Email Writing Format can be formal, semi-formal as well as an informal way of expression or writing. There are two ways to write the email:

• Formally
• Informally