Better English Writing - Geddes Grosset Webster’s Word Power 2014

Emails and texting in the workplace
Writing for work or business

This section gives you guidance on emailing and texting at work.

General approach

Emailing and texting are now the most common ways of communicating at work. Because people tend to use more informal language when communicating in these ways than they do when they are writing a business letter, however, some people think that it is acceptable to relax the rules of grammar, punctuation and clear writing. This is not the case. No matter what you are writing, it needs to be clear and easy to understand, or you won’t get your message across. This applies to emailing and texting at work.

Here are some points to keep in mind when you are emailing:

✵ Be clear and concise. If you have a lot of information, send it as an attachment.

✵ Put the title of the email in the subject box, and keep it short.

✵ Keep paragraphs short and use bulleted lists. There’s nothing worse than scrolling through screeds of information.

✵ Don’t overuse capitals. They can look aggressive and ’shouty’.

✵ Don’t attach pictures or documents that are over 5MB. This can cause problems for the person on the receiving end.

✵ Reply to an email as soon as possible, but don’t keep replying unnecessarily (’thanks!’, ’it’s a pleasure!’, ’no problem!’). It takes up valuable time, you will get into a never -ending cycle and it will clog up your inbox.

Style and tone

When you are emailing or texting colleagues, you should remember that you are at work, and that they are colleagues, and not friends. While it’s acceptable to use a more relaxed tone, here are some points to keep in mind:

✵ Don’t use slang, abbreviations or emoticons. It’s not professional.

✵ Remember also to use proper grammar and fo r matting. If you use lower case and ignore proper sentence structure, you will come across as sloppy and unprofessional.

✵ Think about your reader and the most appropriate way to open and close your email. If you are emailing your boss, it might be more appropriate to open with

’Dear Ms Other’ and close with ’Regards’ than to open with ’Hi’ and close with ’Cheers’. If you are emailing a colleague who is also a friend, then ’Hi’ and ’Cheer s’ are acceptable.

Text-speak?

What is text-speak? The term describes the dialect sometimes used in digital communication whereby lengthy sentences and thoughts are condensed down, using phonetic abbreviations and substituted letters, numbers and characters.

Here’s an example. See if you can translate:

My hols this yr wr CWOT. I wnted 2go2 NY but my bro didn’t. We wnt to Florida instd but it ws full of :-@ kids in theme pks n I h8d it.

Here’s the translation:

My holidays this year were a complete waste of time. I wanted to go to New York, but my brother didn’t. We went to Florida instead, but it was full of screaming kids in theme parks and I hated it.

How long did it take you to work that out? It’s certainly nothing like as clear as plain English and it’s just not appropriate in a work environment. Apart from coming over as unprofessional, you are much more likely to be misunderstood.

Even for those who would not use this kind of extreme text-speak, we often write in a markedly different way when texting or emailing than we would on the page, without, for example, paying the same attention to grammar and punctuation.

While this is fine for personal communication, it carries the same problems, if to a lesser degree, that text-speak does when it comes to work correspondence. Meanings can easily become ambiguous and unclear to the recipient, and, even if clear enough, your message still comes across as sloppy and unprofessional. Stick to plain English when you are emailing and texting at work.

Good practice

Here’s an example of an email exchange between colleagues. It is informal and friendly, but still remains professional:

From: john.smith@wordsolutions.co.uk

To: anne.other @wordsolutions.co.uk

Cc: george.brown@wordsolutions.co.uk

Subject: Notes for board meeting

Hi Anne

Could you please bring last month’s notes along with you to the Board meeting today. This should help to focus our discussions and hopefully we’ll finish in time for a cup of coffee.

Thanks for your help with editing the minutes, by the way.

Best wishes,

John

From: anne.other @wordsolutions.co.uk

To: john.smith@wordsolutions.co.uk

Cc: george.brown@wordsolutions.co.uk

Subject: Re: Notes for board meeting

Hello John

No problem at all. I’ll bring the notes in before the meeting.

Yes, here’s hoping that we get through it all quickly!

Delighted to help with the editing.

Best regards,

Anne