Hi Professional Writers:

Below is a brief guide to effective e-mail communication. Please keep it handy. You will need it for your e-mail postings in this course. Effective e-mail is important in tech comm in general and in this course in particular.

Composing Effective E-mail Postings
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Unlike other communications channels, e-mail potentially offers us unprecedented access and efficiency. However, this communications channel is also a communications challenge. E-mail lacks the context and expressive ease of speech, and e-mail lacks the readability of print.

You can communicate effectively through e-mail by adopting the recommendations below.

Table of Contents
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This e-mail guide is arranged according to the classical rhetorical canon: Invention, Arrangement, Style, and Delivery.

1. Content (Invention)
2. Organization (Arrangement)
3. Format (Style and Delivery)

1. Content (Invention)
======================

• A SUBJECT LINE in an In box is the first thing your recipient will see. To orient your recipient to your message, compose a subject line that is relevant and specific enough for your recipient to distinguish your message from other messages. Place the most important key words first. If you want to encourage your recipient to take action, add verbs in the subject line.
• GREETING a recipient by his/her name will immediately distinguish your message from the more anonymous broadcast, listserv, and spam messages that clutter a typical In Box. Also, a polite use of a recipient's name can lighten the medium's discourtesy and build the recipient's goodwill toward you and your message.
• To compensate for cyberspace's lack of environmental and situational cues, your recipients frequently ask JOURNALIST'S QUESTIONS (i.e., Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?) about ambiguous postings they receive:
  • WHO is sending this message to me?
  • WHY is it important that I read this message?
  • WHAT, specifically, is being asked of me in reply?
  Ensure that the answers to these questions are readily accessible in your posting.
• To compensate for cyberspace's lack of EMOTIONAL CUES (and hence bluntness), in professional and academic situations, err on the side of extra politeness and extra modality (e.g., qualifying words like "could," "might," etc.). If you feel strong emotions about your message, save it until after the emotions have subsided and review its content and tone.
• Be careful with terms that are more likely to get your posting rejected by SPAM FILTERS: simple salutations like "Hello" (opt instead to craft a detailed, personalized subject line and greeting), "free," "opt in" or "opt out," "guarantee," references to checks that may or may not be in the mail, financial and business affairs in general, profanity, private anatomical parts, the exuberant use of punctuation marks.
• To reduce the time and typing you are demanding of your recipient, facilitate your RECIPIENT'S REPLY by composing your requests such that they can be dealt with in short responses, such as by asking questions that have *yes* and *no* answers or similarly short answers.
• In professional situations, append to the bottom of your post a SIGNATURE FILE that includes your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information.
• In your reply to someone else's message, consider the topic and your recipient's relationship to you to determine how much of that recipient's original message should be included verbatim or in paraphrase in your own reply message. If your message needs the PREVIOUS POST as a reference, copy key parts of the previous post at the end of your message. Be sure that the *news* in your message, your new comments, would still be visible in the recipient's top screen.

2. Organization (Arrangement)
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• Because scrolling is disorienting and time consuming, compose your message such that the objective of your posting is realized in the TOP SCREEN. If you want your recipient to take action (such as replying), request the action near the top of your message.
• To best ensure that your objective is read and understood, adopt journalism's successful INVERTED PYRAMID organization scheme by placing the most important information first, including the conclusion of your thinking, followed by background information.
• Because most e-mail interfaces offer a poor reading surface, favour many SHORT PARAGRAPHS over few long paragraphs. If a paragraph must be long, open it with a clear TOPIC SENTENCE that state's the paragraph's main point.
• If your message is long, orient the reader with a TABLE OF CONTENTS in the top screen and number your points.
• When corresponding about two or more unrelated matters, devote a SEPARATE POSTING to each so that each can be managed separately.

3. Format (Style and Delivery)
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• Choose a TONE OF VOICE, from informal to formal, based on the situation, audience, and topic of your message.
• Though a document is more readable if it is well-designed using the functionality of such applications as MS Word or QuarkXpress, the file types of such applications are not readable in most e-mail interfaces. Hence, send file ATTACHMENTS only in circumstances in which . . .
  • the document includes necessary DESIGN elements or MEDIA formats, such as graphics, audio, or video, that are not accessible in simpler e-mail interfaces;
  • the document is LONG enough that it would not likely be read in an e-mail interface;
  • your RECIPIENT wants the document as an attachment or is motivated enough about your document to make the extra effort to open attachments;
  • you are sure your document is not infected by a VIRUS, and your recipient trusts your virus-detecting capabilities.
• Help your reader scan your message by using . . .
  • HEADINGS for different sections,
  • LISTS for parallel or sequential items, and
  • UPPERCASE (sparingly) for key terms.
• Strategically use indentation, short lines, and double spacing between paragraphs to create meaningful BLANK SPACE on the otherwise cluttered screen. Do not rely on blank space creatd by horizontal alignment, such as indentation, centering, etc., because your recipient's e-mail interface may well distort such alignment.
• Though all-lowercase messages are easier to type, they are harder to read. Follow the formatting conventions that are most familiar to your readers' eyes by beginning sentences and proper nouns with UPPERCASE LETTERS. However, as lowercase letter shapes are more easily distinguished from each other, use LOWERCASE (with conspicuous exceptions) for the bulk of your message.
• Likewise, though freewriting is easier to compose, it is harder to decipher. Adhere to the SYNTAX, GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, and SPELLING conventions that are most familiar to your readers. If your e-mail application does not offer spell-check, compose your message in a word processing application and then paste it into your e-mail window.

Sources
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These recommendations for composing effective e-mail postings are drawn from . . .

• _The Elements of E-Mail Style_ (David Angell and Brent Heslop, Addison-Wesley, 1994);
• *Business E-Mail: Guidelines for Users* (Munter, Rogers, & Rymer, _Business Communication Quarterly_, 66.1, 2003);
• and my own laborious experience deciphering e-mail and listserv postings.

All the best,
John

"For a discipline to exist, there must be the possibility of formulating--and of doing so ad infinitum--fresh propositions."
-- Michel Foucault "The Discourse on Language"
______________________

John B. Killoran, Ph.D.
Department of English
Brooklyn Campus
Long Island University
718-488-1000 ext.1923
[email protected]
myweb.brooklyn.liu.edu/jkillora