[Introduction] [What
Makes Email Different?] [Context]
[Format] [Page
Layout] [Intonation]
[Gestures] [Status]
[Formality] [Greetings
and Signatures] [Summary]
[Appendix A: Acronyms and Jargon]
[Appendix B: Domain Names]
[Appendix C: Bibliography]
A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email
Status
Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Just as you have no guarantees about your correspondents' context,
you can't determine much about their status. You can't look at their
clothes, note their dialect and rate of speech, listen the timbre
of their voice, or count the wrinkles around their eyes. Your guesses
about your correspondent's age, race, gender, marital status, affluence,
intelligence, and education will be much less accurate than they
usually would be in a face-to-face or even telephone conversation.
Your correspondents can't tell much about you either. They will
probably do the same thing you will probably catch yourself doing
- make assumptions on the flimsiest of pretexts.
I am emphatically not saying that it is good for people
to make assumptions. But because there are so few status cues to
draw upon, they will. You need to be aware of that, so that
you can work on guiding their assumptions if you need to.
Cues They Will Use
Language
The biggest status cue is your competence with the language. If you
have lots of misspellings, your subjects do not agree with your verbs,
or you use the wrong word, people may assume that you are uneducated.
From that, they may infer that you are not very clever. It doesn't
matter that the correlation between language ability and intelligence
is weak (especially among non-native speakers); lots of people will
make that inference anyway.
Furthermore, some people are literally insulted by getting email
with errors, especially typographical errors. They feel that it
is disrespectful to send email with blatant errors. (Note that you
can use this to your advantage. If you want to flaunt your superior
status, you can insert some typos deliberately.)
I realize that in a perfect world, we would all have the luxury
of faultless writing. However, we do not live in a perfect world.
Good grammar is very hard for some people, just as painting portraits,
solving partial differential equations, shoeing horses, and sinking
putts can be very hard for others. This has always been true, but
before the advent of electronic technology, people who were not
very skilled at writing could do most of their communication verbally.
This coping strategy is less possible now.
Spending more time crafting prose can improve the quality of the
writing, but it is not possible to spend an hour on each email message
if you need to send ten of them per day. Fortunately, grammar- and
spell-checkers can help enormously. If high status is important
to your message, you should definitely use them. However, there
are certain classes of errors that grammar- and spell-checkers will
not find. If you really want to boost your language-related status,
you may have to commit yourself to some significant studying.
Personally, I would like my correspondents to spend their time
on providing appropriate context instead of on perfecting their
grammar. I would much rather get email that says:
There is 50 people with machien guns on Main Street
abt 1 mi aways wallking north and they not friendly so
getcher butts outta here protno!!!!!
than one about the same situation that says:
You would be advised to leave the building promptly.
I can guess at proper grammar; I can't guess at proper context.
Return Address
Your correspondents will extract status cues from your domain. (If
you aren't familiar with domain names, you might want to read the
appendix on domain names and come
back.)
Any stereotype that is held about the organization that gives
you your email connection will rub off on you. For example, if your
email comes from:
- ibm.com, people may presume that you are adult, computer
literate, and somewhat stuffy.
- aol.com, some people will presume that you are connecting
from home and that your email is not work-related.
- washington.k12.ia.us, people may think that you are
under 18.
- webtv.net, people will probably assume that you are
not terribly computer literate.
Your correspondents will also look at your real name (if visible)
and log-in ID. Unless your name has cues to the contrary, most people
will assume that you match the dominant species of your organization
and/or country. People will frequently assume that bpj@thromble.com
is male but that barbara@thromble.com will be female - even
though barbara could easily be a man named Peter Barbara.
Unless the name is something like Smith, people are likely
to assume that the author of any email coming from Taiwan is Asian.
Unless the screen name is something like Jamaal, people will
usually assume that authors of email coming from the U.S. are of
European descent.
Your log-in ID gives even more subtle cues. Having a desirable
email name - short and without numbers - can indicate that you were
one of the first in your domain to get an email account. Thus, steve@thromble.com
has probably been using computers longer than steve9672@thromble.com.
People may also make assumptions about your maturity and formality
level. Your correspondent will probably take Barbara.J.Periwinkle@thromble.com
more seriously than barbiedoll@thromble.com.
You can steer people's impressions very easily just by telling
them who you are. You can do this by adding a signature with status
cues:
Barbara J. Periwinkle
Vice-President of Legal Affairs
Itty Bitty Machines, Inc.
Or:
Peter Periwinkle
Kennedy Middle School
(Age 14)
Check out the Latvian Homepage at http://www.latvia.org!
Here, young Mr. Periwinkle gives the cue that he might be of Latvian
origin.
It can also be effective to lead off a message with status information:
Hi, my name is Peter and I'm a student at Kennedy Middle School
in White Plains. I'm doing a project at school on imaginary
industrial equipment. Could you please send me the latest
thromblemeister catalog?
Or:
Hi - I'm the Vice-President of Legal Affairs with Itty Bitty Machines.
Could you please send me the latest thromblemeister catalog? I'm
considering purchasing stock in your company.
Note that here the author not only gives a title and professional
affiliation, but also shows off language facility by using big words:
"considering purchasing" instead of "thinking of buying". Overuse
of big words can sound pretentious, but in short messages can enhance
status. Be careful, though, that you use the words properly, and that
they aren't so obscure that your correspondent can't understand them.
Email Usage
The final thing that people will look at is your use of email. If
you do not give proper context, type only in capital letters, or use
extremely long lines, people may assume that you are highly inexperienced
with the medium. They may also assume that you are too stupid or stubborn
to learn, since those are errors that are usually pointed out very
rapidly (and not always gently) by experienced users.
In addition to the composition of the email message, people will
look at how appropriate the message was. Was it sent to the right
person? Was it a reasonable question?
Do You Need To Worry About This?
How do you decide how much time you should spend on managing your
status cues? That depends upon several things:
- Do you know these people already? If you have had lots of contact
with your correspondents already, their assumptions about your
age, gender, status, and intellect will be pretty solid. Only
the most serious abuse of grammar rules and email etiquette probably
is likely to significantly affect your status with them.
- Are these people likely to care? High-school English teachers
are likely to care more about your grammar than pet food store
owners. People who send lots of email will probably be more tolerant
than people who have the luxury of spending an hour on every email
message. The Diversity Training Manager is probably less likely
to form impressions based on your race than the regional Dragon
of the Klu Klux Klan.
- What outcome depends on the message? If you are sending email
to your boss, you probably should be careful about your grammar.
If you are corresponding with salespeople who want your business,
well, they are being paid not to care about your grammar. If you
need a favor, people may be more willing to help you if you are
able to project enough status to make them think that you might
be useful to them in the future.
- What does their email look like? If they send you email
with incorrect punctuation, poor spelling, and mangled subordinate
clauses, they probably won't care too much if you do the same.
- Do incorrect assumptions bother you? If you are a man named
Patrick who doesn't mind being mistaken for a woman, then go ahead
and use "Pat" instead of "Patrick". If you don't care if people
think you are a teenager, go ahead and use the handle "RadSkater".
Summary
Again, I do not endorse stereotyping, but generalizing is part of
human nature. You need to be aware of what signals you may be giving
your correspondents and how to counteract them if you feel they may
be incorrect.
- Language status can be improved by using grammar- and spell-checkers.
- Signatures or self-introductions can reduce misconceptions.
- Hopefully, reading this guide will make you more informed when
composing future email messages.
Go on to Formality
Go back to the beginning
Go back to Gestures
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