About time you got that e-mail right
By Ruwanthi Herat Gunaratne

We are hooked. We cannot do without e-mail. Whether it is work related or private, e-mail is a part of our lives. No one bothers with a handwritten letter anymore, knowing that even if the postal authorities do not go on strike, the rain would bar the postman from delivering the letter on time.

Thanks to that train of thought we are now officially in a Matrix-like situation, depending on computers to see to our correspondence. Typing out the perfect e-mail is not easy. Unlike the case of a handwritten/ typed letter an e-mail is off in a second. There’s no rechecking, there’s no time to change the content. The mail has already left the building and the recipient (even if in the North Pole) would have received it.

So how do you draft the perfect e-mail without making Ms. Manners bang her head against the wall? Do you draft it in the same manner as a hardcopy letter? Do you address it to Mr. X or Ms. Y or simply say Hey X or Hi Y? Do you write on a subject that is guaranteed to attract the recipient’s attention or one that is polite?

The golden rule with e-mail is that the message should be concise and to the point. Remember that staring at a computer screen reading out pages and pages is not likely to please a busy person, so if you want a reply keep the message short.

Everyone complains about spelling, grammar and punctuation. E-mail is used so excessively because it is fast and convenient. Where then is the time for punctuation? Most e-mail applications come with inbuilt spelling and grammar checks but if they don’t you will have to re-check for mistakes – bad spelling will not say much if you are writing in an official capacity.

In lighter vein
Part of the nature of a good conversation is the use of visual cues. A simple eye movement can mean the difference between ‘yes’ and ‘YES’. Since there are no visual or auditory cues with e-mail, users have come up with ‘smilies’. These are simple characters that are added to the mail at various points to jazz up your e-mail. But beware; that CEO you are writing to might not appreciate a winking icon at the end of that complaint!

How personal is too personal? Should you begin each e-mail by stating his/her complete designation and topping it off with Dear Sir/Madam or should you simply say Dear X/Y? Should you use standard formalities? If it is a personal e-mail you could use the recipient’s first name. But the problem arises in the case of business e-mails. If you generally address a person as Mr./Ms. use the same salutation even in an e-mail or use your discretion.

You’re reading my mail!
Privacy? Are you kidding? According to www.iwillfollow.com “there is no such thing as a private e-mail”. With some e-mail systems, the e-mail administrator has the ability to read e-mail messages.

Some companies monitor employee e-mail. The reasons for this range from company management wanting to make sure that users are not wasting their time to making sure that company secrets are not being leaked.

E-mail software is like all software in that occasionally things go wrong. If this happens your mail might end up in another’s inbox and what you considered private may not be private anymore. Somewhere in the world there is a person (usually a hacker) who is able to read your mail if he/she tries hard enough. So never send anything by e-mail that you wouldn’t want posted on the company bulletin board!

Nothing annoys most of us more than opening our inboxs to see dozens and dozens of junk mail littering it. Do you really want to be one of the many on a mailing list? Why not use the bcc option? Your recipients might have a happier Monday morning as a result!

If you want to write an e-mail message and live through any trying consequences it might generate, draft it in the manner of an ordinary formal letter – you might sleep better if you do! Run now, you’ve probably got mail!

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