Sunday, October 04, 2009
“SEND”: Improve the Quality of Your Email
Web Worker Daily: "All but the youngest of web workers grew up learning not about email but about paper correspondence, as dictated by the likes of Emily Post. I personally learned to type on an electric typewriter in high school, and can write a perfectly polite thank you notecard thanks to the schooling of my mother."
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17 comments:
I don't think it necessary to have a book in order to send an email correctly, but I definitely agree that there are certain aspects of email-sending that should be taken into consideration. We had a class in PTM last year about how to appropriately send an email that included a lot of reasonable advice. For me, I usually make sure to include in my emails things that I find aggravating when overlooked, such as a subject line, and a concise layout of information.
This seems like an interesting book to read. To see what others think is the correct way to go about email correspondence seems like an interesting topic to write a book about. As Brooke pointed out, we have had a class on how to correctly send emails, but having a book for as a reference guide could be helpful. If I see this book, I may read through it at a book store or find it at a library, I don't think it would be helpful to buy, but an interesting read.
What I appreciated most about this article was the mention that sometimes e mail might not be the most appropriate way to communicate or send information. I feel in todays world and especially at CMU it sometimes seems ridiculous to suggest that you might be able to successfully communicate through any method other than using a computer. I think it is very important to remember that there are other ways to communicate with people and send information.
I do however believe that as email becomes an increasingly bigger part of our lives it is important that everyone understand not only the proper etiquette of sending an e mail but also the more practical aspects discussed in this book. It also appears as if pretty soon we will need one of these books for facebook and twitter, technological advances that people insist on using, but not always in the best way.
In this day and age everyone uses email just as if they were texting a friend. Just writing up a quick email to send to a friend, coworker, or boss. The generation right now that has had email for as long as they have been alive and do not understand the difference between all the communication tools. This book seems to have a lot of good advice for everyone about all the unsaid rules about email. I would really like to read the section about when to send an email since. It would probably save everyone hours of deleting email.
I agree with what is being said here. Brooke's point about the PTM class is key I think. We have been told time and time again what appropriate email standards are. But a lot of people somehow miss that memo, due to little fault of their own. For us, some might seem like common sense, but there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to write relation-appropriate emails, or how to differentiate so the guide would be handy. I don't think it will ever become a live by guide like emily post, but then again, now people can just look stuff up on the internet. :-)
I think this book looks like a must-read if you use email a lot. I've never really used email professionally, but just reading the review, I can already anticipate some pit-falls that I never would have seem coming. Much like the article about emailing your professors, I can see myself using some of the advice from here. (Although this article didn't offer much in the way of advice, it only hinted at things in the book.) When I get more into the professional world, I'll be sure to pick up a copy of this book, or the latest version thereof. Already in the SOD, email seems to be the main form of communication; in the professional world, I can only imagine it to be more intensely used.
I can't imagine ever taking the time to read the book, but a brief overview of what people think the "correct' way to send emails is probably would be useful in our industry. We all get tons and tons of email everyday -- it would be nice if we could all develop a common email brevity and syntax based on brevity and etiquette. As lovely as the one word response email is, it is terribly informative and brusque.
This book is especially intersting considering that amount of e-mail we process and send everyday, especially here at Carnegie Mellon, where it is an even more integral part of our lives. Their are many unwritten that some of us know, and others sometimes need to be clued in on. While originally just a simple form of communication, e-mail has evolved and become something much more complex and sometimes confusing in it's etiquette, so it's good to have a book to reference, and provide help on how to write a good e-mail that is helpful and actually provides a way for you to convey information effectively to others around you.
This sounds like some very basic guidelines about e-mails. Every High school student should be required to read it. The article mentions how most peope e-mailing today did not grow wup with e-mail and how they need the guides. However, I feel that the younger generations need more guidance. E-mail has made them lazy in their communication and the formality some occasions warrent.
What it boils down to is everyone should read this book from High school all the way to the top executives.
Writing a book about e-mail etiquette enforces the idea that there is an etiquette to begin with; too many people are clueless as to what is and is not acceptable when communicating via e-mail. The rules to e-mail should be pinned down and universal so that it is less likely that people will be offended during a string of e-mail correspondence simply because each person has a different idea of what is polite and what is impolite. E-mail is so commonplace these days that it is important for everyone to know an established set of rules.
I want this book. E-mail is just a maze of sloppy layouts and confusion. I sometimes gat "okay, sounds good," as a response to a well composed traditionally structured E-mail (even from professional adults). How short is too short? Here at CMU we get a TON of e-mails daily. Some stuff is forwarded requests from some absent minded actor regarding his lost script, while some are announcements form the head of the school. A basic formula for what the subject line should read, would be incredibly helpful. I feel that this book probably would help people establish a clear and organized form of E-mail communication.
The only thing they didn't mention in this article is the birth of TWITTER and FACEBOOK. These are causing people to think in terms of 160 characters or less. Sadly this sloppy abbreviated and butchered from of english is spilling into the world of E-mail which should really be written in FULL paragraph form.
All in all it's time for a re-education in e-mail communication.
The post about the book is really interesting. Having grown up with email, we don't always think about how we should be corresponding in emails and the etiquette involved in writing an email. In grade school we never were trained how to write proper letters either so we are in a limbo world where we are confused whether we are writing correctly or completely wrong.
This is the first book I've ever heard of about email etiquite, and I can't believe it took this long! Email has become far and away my primary from of communication, and I often find myself wondering what the right way to format, word, etc. is. There have been letter writing etiquite books since before there was a postal service, but people don't pay enough attention to how they sound in emails. It's a technology that allows us to communicate just shy of instantly, so of course there need to be rules governing it.
I don't understand what the big deal is. Why do you need an entire book to explain how to send an email. They need to be brief, to the point and sentence structured (for business). I am really curious how they could fill an entire book with email etiquette, I almost want to read it just to understand why I'm missing.
While I believe that, indeed, e-mails have gotten very informal, I do not necessarily think that this is a bad thing. However, when e-mail is is used for a purpose that should be using another medium (telephone, letter, etc.) the informality is just not ok. Sending a :) is just not ok in any kind of formal setting.
I would love to take a look at this book to see if indeed the "correct" e-mail could be applied to the type of e-mail that I commonly send. While formatting and layout is very important, it cannot get in the way of transmitting information.
However, I think that the first stem is making people understand how to use the basic functions of an e-mail. I am amazed how many people do not know how to BCC someone. Once we have established this, the dreaded mis-directed send can be gotten rid of (even though you should never send anything of real importance via email).
I think that a book may be useful to some people, but mostly if you're stupid. I feel like senior citizens who are just coming to the email world are very polite yet concise with emails and text messages, and it's the younger people who use them both as an excuse to be unprofessional.
So, maybe it COULD be a good idea for a book; but, I think these things would be better taught in context, rather than in book format. It just seems that it would become really dry. Something like we had in Basic PTM last year suffices.
It's important that people realize that email is not the only way to talk to people, and that there are proper ways to actually write an email. A lot of people don't include some of the most important information in their emails and they forget all of their manners when they are writing emails. Why do people find it so hard to pick up the phone?
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