Resources for Office Professionals at EMU
Using E-mail Professionally
*TIP*
E-mail is a direct reflection of your professionalism and personal credibility.
It makes an impression! Use it wisely and efficiently. |
E-mail can be a wonderful communications tool, and a great productivity enhancer.
Before you hit "send," it is important to understand some basic rules about
professionalism, privacy and security on e-mail.
E-mail is a professional communication
- Consider your EMU e-mail account as a reflection of your
professional position and credibility,
even when you use it to send personal messages.
- Treat e-mail like a permanent record: once you send
a message, it is potentially in existence forever.
- Avoid relying on your "tone of voice," since
your voice inflection (i.e. humor, sarcasm, irony) can not be heard.
- Do not send a message when you are particularly angry
or upset - chances are, you will regret it later.
- Respond carefully to angry / emotional messages.
Take some time to consider your response, and think about whether it
might be best to respond in person or by phone.
- Spell check if you are a poor speller, and use proper grammar
without being formal. Presentation, including spelling,
is a matter of credibility.
- Use an accurate, concise subject line so users can
scan their messages and decide when to read/reply.
- Greet people and sign off most of the time. Use
generally accepted standards of professional communication. If you
ask someone to send you an attachment and they do so, send a brief acknowledgement and thanks - one sentence is sufficient - to let them
know you received it.
- Make sure you have the correct recipient for all
your e-mail (i.e. check first and last name; there are a lot of Joe
Smiths). Much embarrassment has been caused by failure to check recipients'
names and spellings!
- Be clear and concise in your messages. Respect people’s
time and limited in-box capacity.
- Write for the intended audience, but be aware of
the potential audience (i.e. anyone to whom your message
might possibly be forwarded, intentionally or otherwise, in the future). Be
careful and thoughtful about what you say and how you say it. Remember
that e-mail is a permanent, written record and is legally discoverable.
- When forwarding messages, explain why you are forwarding,
unless it is self-evident.
- When replying to a message, include the original
text string for context, except in chronologically close or continuous
responses.
- When attaching documents, detail specifically what
is attached, the file type and why it is attached.
- Use caution with the size and number of attachments. "Stuffing"
in-boxes is unprofessional and annoying.
- If you must send large or numerous
attachments, call the person first.
- Follow up to messages; reply as soon as you can; keep your promises.
Your professional reputation will be directly affected
by your e-mail behaviors.
- Do not use the automated "reply/receipt requested" feature
unless you feel you must know that someone has read your message.
It is annoying and generally rude to "track" people's
reading of your messages.
- Send to multiple recipients sparingly; use "reply
to all" sparingly. Who absolutely needs to read your
message? Send only to these people.
- Use a two-read-maximum rule for handling incoming
messages:
Read once, decide what you will do (and do it right away if possible);
Read a second time when you are ready to reply/act.
- Organize, store and delete your messages regularly.
and finally,
- Remember that e-mail is inherently insecure. It is
not private, though we sometimes treat it as such. There is always a
possibility that e-mail can be read, forwarded or transmitted to unintended
recipients. Keep this in mind as you craft and send your messages. Also,
remember that e-mail is discoverable, meaning
that it can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act or as part
of a legal action.
A few words about spam
Today, more than 60% of all e-mail is spam - unwanted, unsolicited, bulk
e-mail messages. Most people hate spam, yet its use increases every day.
That's because it's cheap, easy, and yes, surprisingly effective. You
can fight spam in small ways by using the following techniques:
Do not send spam - ever (you can report spam you have
received to www.spamcop.net or a similar service). Do not forward "chain" e-mail
messages - these are spam! If you send spam, people will begin to look
with suspicion on your legitimate messages, and you'll also find your name
on more spam lists. You may even be captured by an intended recipient's
spam filter.
Ways to minimize / avoid spam:
- Do not reply to it, because you
are simply verifying that your e-mail address is valid and active. While
the original sender of spam may be required to remove your name from
that specific list, they will just roll your e-mail address over to other
lists--and mark it as a hot prospect, because you replied!
- Never open attachments that you are not specifically
expecting from a known user.
- Use your e-mail's spam blocking features; delete all
spam you receive.
- Use your e-mail's spam mail box feature if one is
available (i.e. it redirects all mass-mailed messages to a separate mailbox
where you can delete them easily).
- Do not publish your e-mail address on web pages in
a format that can be captured by crawlers (i.e. use something like rdelong
atsign emich dot edu, rather than myname@webaddress.com.).
- Do not send or forward spam. In addition
to contributing to the problem, you will find your name on a lot more
lists if you do this. Most of the "cute" or "cool" mass
messages you receive are NOT worth passing along to your address book--and
most people do not appreciate them. Plus, web crawlers pick these up
and add your name to their spam address lists. If you simply must forward
that cool message, select one or two recipients and send it to them individually.
- Report repeated or nefarious spam
to spamcop.net or
a similar service.
- Opt out of receiving unnecessary commercial "updates" and "deals" from
online retailers. Usually, when you make a purchase online, you are given
this option. Always select "no," unless you want more spam.
- Do not provide your e-mail address to anyone unless
you understand and consent to their privacy practices and what they will
do with your e-mail address. If you must provide an e-mail address in
order to access a particular service, consider using pookmail.com.
Pookmail allows you to create a 24-hour temporary e-mail address that
you can use to register for sites and receive e-mail - it's easy, anonymous
(no registering!) and free. After 24 hours, the made-up e-mail address
is deleted.
- Write your legislators asking for
tougher, enforced laws to reduce spam.
- Ask your friends to remove
you from their mass-forwarding lists. Crawlers can search for mass e-mail
lists and capture the addresses.
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