Correspondence: Email Components

In many ways, an email message looks very much like a traditional memo: although it does not have a Memo title, it does contain the other elements usually found in the heading section. The To, From, and Subject lines are automatically embedded in the email template, just waiting to be filled in by the writer. Be as attentive to how you complete them as you would if you were preparing a memo. Every email is time-stamped, so the Date line becomes unnecessary.

However, an email is different from memos in several key ways:

• It transmits information virtually and immediately, from floor to floor, building to building, city to city, country to country.
• It reduces a company or corporation’s communication costs, because it is free.

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Email Reminders

There are some things you should keep in mind when preparing emails.

Think Before You Send

One of the reasons email is so popular, though—its speed—can also be one of its downfalls. A paper memo must be written and then mailed, giving the reader time to ponder approach, tone, and content in the writing of it. With an email, once you’ve sent it, it is really and truly gone—mailed, delivered—and cannot be retrieved or reconsidered. For that reason, professional or real-world email communication demands extra caution, careful thought, and deliberation.

Adjust Your Tone

Additionally, because email can be the central way in which we communicate informally with family and friends, you can become used to writing in a less formal way when you produce a message. However, if you use it to reach out to a professional colleague, a superior, or a client, all of whom should be given a certain level of respect,  you need to ensure that you are achieving a certain level of formality. “Hey, Joe” might be a fine way to begin an email to your colleague who’s also a friend, but that is not the way to address someone who might hire you or your company. Don’t let the informality with which you approach messages to your friends or your parents color the approach you take with professional correspondence.

Know It Can be Permanent

Just because email is transmitted electronically and not printed does not mean that it is less permanent, either. Because email has become an expected part of our daily professional communication, messages often are saved, filed in separate, specific mailboxes for future reference.

Watch the “Reply All”

In many ways, email not only possesses a “paper trail” equal to that of letters and memos, but it can also be far more public than you might anticipate. Have you ever hit “Reply All” when you meant to send a private reply to only a single person? Have you ever forwarded to someone else a private email someone sent to you? Have you ever blind carbon-copied someone on an email? If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions, then you understand the ways that emails can find their way to the Inboxes of many other recipients—whether or not they were supposed to.

While one frequently finds internal reports set up as memos, rarely if ever are proposals, reports, and other formal documents created as emails. Email messages are meant to be shorter, more succinct—although not necessarily less formal, particularly in a professional setting.

Consider a Salutation and a Signature

Finally, you need to know about two ways that an email message might differ from a formal paper memo. Although both share the To, From, Subject, and Date features (even if the one in email is embedded in the time stamp), most of us do include in emails:

• A salutation
• A signature

Is it acceptable to do so? Yes. In fact, salutations are a topic of widsepread discussion, as in “Hi? Dear? The State of the Email Salutation,” Links to an external site. by Forbes magazine writer Susan Adams. In this article, which notes the rise in popularity of “Hi” as an email salutation, Adams surveys several experts in the field and summarizes their advice:

While etiquette sticklers like Ramsey and Lett insist that all business e-mails should begin with the word “Dear,” there is no uniform rule these days. But you should definitely use some form of a salutation, rather than just diving into the e-mail text, unless you’re writing to someone you know very well. Though many people now see “Dear” as outmoded, it is a fail safe fall-back, and “Hello,” followed by the person’s name, is also acceptable. “Hi,” followed by the person’s name, has been on the rise for some time, and is considered standard in many situations.