Writing Emails for Business Article on Suite

It seems so simple. It's just an email....

I've never received a business email with the horrible all-caps notes. I do receive a couple every year where it's obvious the sender hit "Reply All" when they really didn't mean to. And I've received and written some where the lack of having a tone of voice was a problem. I've seen formal, memo-like emails and short one-liners without even an introductory name or a sign-off.

When I decided to write an article for the Business/Technical Writing section of Suite 101 I skimmed through what was already there and decided something on writing good corporate emails was called for. My article started out closer to the idea of just having a good email and including some etiquette information but I trimmed that out as I continued. What I finished with was

How to Write Business Email That Get Results

I know that some of the basic ideas came from things I've read elsewhere and a few - like the note about summarizing an attachment - I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen. Not that I think it's new, just that I hadn't been reading anything truly in-depth about using email.

It's just a confusing medium in some ways. It's a permanent record but can be done very quickly and informally. It doesn't look as nice when it comes to something formal, but what's in an email body can inspire more discussion than what's merely attached.

Some ideas for spin-off articles - how to use email to cover your butt and keep everyone informed, otherwise titled who to copy and when - how to write an email that gets results, but back to actual writing structure like in a business letter like I learned back in school (I actually remember that lecture) - differences in email structure and corporate guidelines across industries, although darned if I know how I'd figure that one out...

Not that I'm likely to write any of those. I need to do a manufacturing related article and my next article in the business writing category should be on a completely different topic to develop breadth within it.

As a side note, I was thrilled that the editor didn't require me to make any changes to the article before publishing it. That was pretty cool.