6 Mistakes That Look Dumb In Email
January 31, 2008 · Print This Article
These are six things that will make you look stupid in email. In some cases breaking these rules will make you lose your job. In others they will simply annoy your readers. If you have any suggestions that should be added, please leave a comment.
1. Put Your Entire Message In The Subject
Just because you can see the entire subject as you type it, doesn’t mean it will show up for your recipient the same way. Depending on their email program, it might even truncate it.
2. CC A Bunch Of Unrelated Recipients
If you need to send something out to a large number of people who don’t already know each other, don’t put them in the CC field. That broadcasts their email address to each other. There was a case a few years ago where a real estate agent did this to a group of people who were all looking for apartments in New York. People who received it were able to sell the email to other agents for thousands of dollars because it contained the email addresses of qualified leads.
You can use the BCC field if you need to send messages out to a bunch of people. Put your own email address in the TO field. That way recipients can’t see each other’s email addresses and no matter what they hit any response will come back to only you.
3. Hit Reply All Instead Of Reply
I don’t really know how you could do this accidentally, but I’ve seen it happen many times. I’m guessing that some people have mail programs where the Reply and Reply All buttons are very close together. Other times I think people are just being lazy and hit Reply All (to 100 people) instead of taking the time to add the three people who need to see their reply.
4. Send A Message To A Superset Of People Who Need It
Lets say you have a group called Administration that contains the CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, CSO, and all the other C executives. Don’t send a message to the group when it really only needs to go to a smaller number of people in the group.
Sometimes people are too lazy (or don’t know how) to figure out who is in the group they are using. With Outlook, you can click on the + by the group name to show a list of everyone in the group.
5. Leave Out Punctuation
writing in all lowercase with no punctuation doesnt make you look intelligent take the time to use correct punctuation it will make your message easier to understand
Arghh. That was painful to write. Email is often considered informal, but punctuation rules are there for a reason. They really do make it easier for people to understand what you are saying. In some cases leaving out punctuation can give you rsentences an entirely different meaning.
6. Leave Out Paragraphs
Similar to leaving out punctuation, writing one big blob of text does not make your email easy to read. In fact, many people will skip over long messages that they can’t easily scan–especially if they happen to get your message on a cell phone or Blackberry.
Ok there are my six suggestions of things to avoid in email. If you have any suggestions to add, please leave them in the comments.
What about those silly “Email Templates” that you can choose in Outlook and other programs… You know - the ones that annoy readers with extra attachments of pictures/backgrounds… Those Suck!
Great list!
I’ve seen #3 happen SO MANY times with the professional listservs that I’m on. Most of the time this happens it is with a reply that the person obviously did not want to go out to the whole group (personal info, a personal and sometimes disparaging reply about someone or the group). It is sickening to see it happen.
So I try to make it a habit to double and triple check the “to” line before sending any email. Even with emails that aren’t listserv replies– it is very easy now with email apps that fill in the “to” line as you type to end up sending something to a professional acquaintance (”Joan”) rather than to your significant other (”Jo”). And think of how embarrassing that would be!
I would also add another mistake/rule– especially with professional and business emails. NEVER say something in an email about anyone else that you wouldn’t want forwarded to that person. People make unknowingly (or worse, on purpose) may end up cc’ing that individual on a long train of forwards/replied emails with stuff way down at the bottom that wasn’t meant for other people to read.
I LOVE when #3 happens. Watching the fallout is better than watching TMZ.
Leaving out punctuation is a freakin’ pet peve of mine. Usually, I can’t even figure out what the writer is talking about!
And I agree with Aaron - the “leaves” template in some e-mail programs do not remind me of fall - they look juvenile (kind of like when I’m in a business meeting and someone’s phone plays a Britney Spears song as the ringtone). I feel for that person.
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer
Amen!
Now, if I can only find a polite way to point a few specfic people to this page without being rude about it.
I’ve never known anyone who actually tried to put all of his or her message in the subject line. Unless the person is a total novice at sending emails, I don’t think he or she will make that mistake. One of my pet peeves in email is reading one that has no proper case and no punctuation marks. It makes the message seem less important.
@Julie - You are luck to not know anyone who tries to put their entire message in the subject. I see this over and over again. It always baffles me, but it happens frequently enough that I know it isn’t a fluke.
@Aaron - The backgrounds can be pretty annoying–especially when they don’t render correctly on your computer. I usually suggest that people keep their email formated as simply as possible so it has the greatest chance of looking correct for the recipient. Things have improved a bit. Most email clients support html now, but it is still worth avoiding unless it really adds to your message.
@Jay - Good luck pointing things pointing things out to people. I’ve had the best results (in a work environment) by sending a message out to everyone from HR. Not only do you get the message to the offenders, but you create a sense of peer pressure to keep them from annoying everyone else with their bad email habits.