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Managing Email

With so many email messages coming into mailboxes, it is easy to be overwhelmed and for messages to be lost or difficult to find when they are needed. So, it is important to use good management principles in handling email. The following tips are useful in managing email.

• Respond to a message when you read it if at all possible; do not let messages pile up in your in-box.
• Se priorities for reading email by skimming sender names and topics; read your manager’s emails, important topics, and time-sensitive messages first.
• Copy yourself on important emails and create your own subject-line titles with the care suggested earlier in this section and in the discussion of memos.
• For complex requests or issues, send a quick message that you’ll respond to the question or problem after you gather more information.
• Print crucial messages that are complex or that you will need for meetings.(Keep them in file folders as you would paper correspondence.)
• Check your in-box several times a day;as suggested earlier, some organizations have expectations about the frequency with which you will need to check.
• Clear your in-box by the end of the day–or at least by the beginning of the next day.
• Create electronic folders for email, using personal names and key topics for folders.
• Learn the advanced features of your system so that you can use filters that organize messages as they arrive.
• Use the search command to find topics and individual names.
• Keep an up-to-date address book.(“Writing That Works”, Oliu;Brusaw;Alred)

Design Considerations

• Be sure to break the text into brief paragraphs. No one wants to read long, dense blocks of text on a computer screen.
• Do not overwhelm your reader with lengthy passages. If your message runs much longer than a screen of text, consider sending it as an attached file along with a brief email message that functions as a cover memo for the longer attachment.
• Tables and bullet lists, like many formatting features, do not always transmit well. If you must send a document with such features, do so in an attachment to your message, after making sure that the recipient has compatible software to view and save the attachment.
• Be considerate of the technical capabilities of your recipient. Check before sending memory-hungry attachments that may not be accepted by your recipient’s software or Internet service provider or that may be downloaded very slowly.
• Put your response to someone else’s email message at the beginning (or top) of the email window. Don’t make the recipient scroll down to the end of the original message to find your response.
• In quoting the message you’re replying to, include only those parts relevant to your reply. To clearly indicate the difference between your response and the text quoted in the incoming email, mark the beginning of the quoted text with a greater-than symbol(>).
• Always fill the subject line with a concise phrase that describes the topic of your message. The recipient can then decide at a glance when he or she needs to read it. Subject lines, as discussed earlier, also help your reader organize and file incoming messages.(“Writing That Works”, Oliu;Brusaw;Alred)

Take a Well-Deserved Break

After your draft is written, you may email it to a superior for reveiw before you prepare the final form for signature and distribution.

Now sit back and enjoy the sense of professional pride you have earned from a job well done under pressure!(“Writing That Works”, Oliu;Brusaw;Alred)

Polish the Draft

Turn to your written draft as a critic would to someone else’s work. You will not have much time left, but discipline yourself to read the draft several time, concentrating on different elements each time.

First, concentrate on larger issues. Is the information accurate? Is it complete? Have you made all your points? Are they organized in the right sequence? Have you provided too much information? Revise accordingly.

Next, focus on polishing at the sentence and word level. Aim for simple sentences in the active voice. Don’t use only short sentences, however. Longer sentences break the monotony of too many simple sentences strung together. Structure longer sentences so that subjects and verbs agree and primary ideas are distinct from subordinate ideas. Use parallel structure to convey matching ideas. Use lists where possible to ensure that each item is given equal weight and is expressed in the same grammatical form. Don’t forget to review punctuation. A misplaced comma or semicolon can change the meaning of a sentence. Remember, in this situation you do not have time for a cooling period, so watch for any emotionally charged language.

As a final review, use your spell checker, but don’t rely solely on the spell checker to catch all of your spelling errors. Make sure you read through a paper version of the memo at least once to catch any remaining errors. If you have time, ask a second reader to help you.(“Writing That Works”, Oliu;Brusaw;Alred)