Virginia Shea in her Rules of Netiquette offers a warning: “On the Web, you won't be judged by the color of your skin, eyes, or hair. You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing.” Last month I wrote an the article “Are You Drowning in Email?” This month I'm giving you six additional tips to make sure your are presenting the right impression.

In my previous article I encouraged you to write messages using the Pyramid Method, to keep your messages short, to make sure you proof read what you write and to avoid complex formatting. Here are six more techniques to consider:

1. Write an Informative Subject Line. Readers tend not to open messages when they cannot identify the writer or don't recognize the importance of the information. It's essential to keep your subject line short, but it must be informative . A subject line that simply says “Progress” is uninformative; a subject line that says “Delay in Arbutus Project” gets readers' attention.

2. Write an Effective Opening Statement. Readers of online information expect to be told right away what they most need to know; they don't want to search for key points that are buried far down in the message. So, before starting to write, separate your information into two groups:

• Need to Know: These are the essential facts your reader must have to make a decision or take action.
• Nice to Know: These are details which only may be of interest; details your reader does not need to make a decision.

Shorten your email messages by inserting only the Need to Know information.

3. Use Good Language. The impression that your readers obtain of you and the department or organization you represent depends on the quality of the words, sentences and paragraphs you write. We all know and respect this when we write regular letters and reports. But we tend to be much more careless when we write email messages.

You need to create the impression that you have important information to convey and that you know your subject well. The words you write—and how you write them—will help convey this impression. And so will the appearance of your information. Here are some guidelines:

• Keep your paragraphs shorter than you would for paper-based writing.
• Avoid letting your reader think you are a poor writer or are careless, which can happen if you:
• write incomplete or incorrectly constructed sentences,
• forget about using proper punctuation,
• type everything in capital letters (or all in lower case letters), or
• misspell words.
• If you have a message longer than two to three paragraphs, prepare it as a separate document in Word and attach it to your email. If you also summarize the key points in the email, you will ensure your reader sees your main message right away.

Hesitate Before Clicking ‘Reply All'. When you are ready to reply to an email message that has been sent to several people, ask yourself: “Do they all need to read my reply?” You can help reduce the quantity of email messages traveling through the system by selectively identifying who really needs to hear from you. If it's only the originator of the message, just click ‘Reply.'

Hesitate Before Clicking Print. Email offers an excellent opportunity to reduce the amount of paper we use, but only if we don't print almost every message we receive! Ideally, print an email message only when it's essential to keep a hard copy as a permanent document, if you need to take a copy to a meeting, or when you have to proofread an important email message (because you will identify more errors if you proofread on paper than you will if you proofread on screen).

Hesitate Before Storing Your Emails. There is a tendency among email users to ‘Save' messages which, if they had been sent to them on paper, they would have discarded. The cost of unrestrained filing of email messages is horrendous, because it means the server or the hard drive must have a much greater storage capacity. An overloaded system also is noticeably slower.

Be ruthless: don't become an electronic packrat! Retain only those messages that you are certain will be referred to again or are required as permanent documentation.

© 2005, RGI Learning Lisa Moretto is the President of RGI Learning, Inc. For 14 years she has helped engineers improve their oral and written communication skills. Visit www.rgilearning.com or call (585) 461-3617 to learn about RGI's courses.

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