12 Jul More About Email
Wouldn’t you think that concerns about appropriate and effective emails have been settled by now?
But, no. Voices continue to be raised about messages that are incomplete, incomprehensible, rude, or appear to have been written by a hamster.
When faced with criticism, many email writers defend their messages by saying that email is informal and is essentially just ‘speaking – on the computer.’
I ask how the recipients ingest the message. Do they listen to it, as we do when someone speaks? “No,” say these folks, who act as though I’m a first grader, “They read it, of course.”
I rest my case.
If we produce something for someone to read, we need to produce something that approximates the accepted standards for writing. Readers expect to understand what they read. They look for clues such as sentence structure, punctuation, and correct-enough grammar. And they don’t want to be confused about the sub-text. (Is she mad at me? Did I miss something?) And since they can’t speak up, they assume that whatever they asked is going to be answered, and that whatever is being told to them is going to contain all necessary information.
I think we’ve been hearing these concerns since email first entered our lives. High maintenance, these email readers
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We have an email writing class – do you have anyone who should attend?