16 Email Mistakes You Must Avoid: Email Etiquette

Poor email etiquette. You’re a victim of it – perhaps you’re a guilty criminal. From unknown abbreviations, forwarded chain emails, and unwanted messages, we’re all affected by bad email etiquette.

The number of untrained email users is staggering. Former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo! Tim Sanders estimates that 90% of business communication is email based and only 10% of email users receive adequate training. When this statistic is combined with data from a market research firm Radicati Group who say the 1.2 billion email users in 2007 will increase to 1.6 billion in 2011, an estimate of 1.44 billion people will be untrained in email by 2011. Your workplace and business likely suffers from poor email etiquette – and it isn’t going to get better anytime soon unless you doing something about it with the rules of email etiquette in this article.

Good Netiquette

Email etiquette, commonly referred to as “netiquette”, defines the rules of email communication. Netiquette is important because an email sent cannot be retreived. You cannot reach through the computer cables to retreive an email sent to your boss in a regretful emotional outlash where you swore to destroy his dictatorship.

Though you probably hate the thought of writing a grammatically correct email to a friend, netiquette in everyday email communication helps clarity, understanding, and productivity. Your emails will get the proper understanding they deserve. From having the right mindset when seated, to sending an email, here are the most important netiquette rules to follow so you’re one of the 160 million users in 2011 that know what they’re doing when they check their inbox:

1. Emotional emails. Do not send an email when you are angry. You could say things you later regret and the receiver of your little outburst will have a record of your email that could be used against you. Too many careers have been destroyed from angry emails. Your email may appear okay as you compose it, but let time clear your mind so you don’t regret clicking the “send” button.

I also recommend you reread your email to check for sentences, phrases, and words that can be interpreted another way to your main intent. You may come off as rude even though you try to be nice. A simple joke you think is funny may be offensive to someone else simply because they misinterpreted the joke. The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium to communicate emotion.

2. Unnecessary information. Most people waste too much time browsing their inbox the way it is without having to read long messages. Do people a favor by keeping your emails short. Provide the necessary facts and cut the fat.

Having said that, you still need to provide all the information upfront whenever possible. It is frustrating and time-consuming to ask questions for more information that could have easily been provided in the initial email.

3. HTML. You do not need to know exactly what is HyperText Markup Language (HTML), but basically it is used to make websites look pretty. Making text bold in email uses HTML. When you copy and paste emails from websites, you may also unknowingly copy the HTML code across. The HTML in the email you send does not always look like the email someone receives. Funny enough, the message sent is not the message received. Some email programs are not HTML compatible so when they receive HTML emails, weird HTML code might show and other formatting issues may occur.

Simply provide a website link if you are going to copy an entire web page. If you want to copy snippets of information, not only do you risk breaking copyright laws, but at your discretion you can copy the text across to a text file program (such as Notepad, not Microsoft Word) and then copy the text from there into your email program. Copying the text to a text file program, such as Notepad, removes HTML and prevents weird formatting issues.

4. Reply to all. It is frustrating to receive emails from group members who simply say “Yes, I can come” or “No” when you do not need to receive them. Stop being lazy. Please take the small amount of time to address your email to the specific people your email is intended for.

5. Forwarding to all. I am a big victim of this email mistake! When subscribing to my newsletter, I advise the person to add me to their address book or whitelist to ensure my emails reach them. Because of this, and having an email list that contains tens of thousands of people, I am in many people’s address book. Often, subscribers receive an email and forward it to everyone in their address book. The result for me is a daily cleanup of forwarded emails, which often contain attachments that clog data efficiency.

Chain emails are so annoying! The next time you get an email with a poem, story, or series of images you love, keep them to yourself. A lovely story about patience you forward to friends may infuriate them.

6. Making people’s email addresses known. It is considered rude to send out an email to several people making their email address visible in the “To” box. Unless the recipients know each other and are comfortable sharing their email addresses, avoid this bad mistake. You can use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) function of emails to hide recipients’ email addresses. The Bcc function will ensure everyone receives the email, but it looks like the email is addressed to a specific individual.

7. Removed message thread. Here is another email etiquette mistake that I am a victim of everyday: not having the replied message in the sent message. Not having the replied message in the sent message is almost the face-to-face conversational equivalent of being bashed across the head and forgetting what was discussed in the conversation. Based on the hundreds of emails I receive everyday, I estimate 10% of people do not attach their replied message. I easily forget what was sent in an email someone replied to because I frequently have discussions with multiple people at the same time.

Make it easy for people to know what you are talking about by ensuring their message you reply to is attached. Google’s email service, Gmail, is great at keeping track of past messages. Be sure to change your email settings so that messages you reply to get included in your reply.

8. Use of abbreviations. Friend to friend or family member to family member, abbreviations can be fine. It is entirely up to you. Problems arise when abbreviation usage in emails carries over into the workplace and other areas where professionalism is needed. Here is a useful video on email etiquette that I thought you might find interesting:

A three minute Fox Providence presentation discussing email etiquette. It focuses on professionalism by avoiding abbreviations.

9. Unknown abbreviations. AFAIK 404 but I’ll POAHF because I TILII. Do you know what that means? Very few people do. It means: As far as I know I have no clue, but I’ll put on a happy face because I tell it like it is.

Good email etiquette avoids unknown abbreviations. Though you can get away with abbreviations when emailing friends, for example – because it is an efficient technique for a slow typer – communication problems occur when the receiver is unaware of the abbreviation. What may seem apparent to you might confuse the recipient of your email. How would you like it if a friend sent you an email with ADO, YOOAD, WWMT, and other weird abbreviations? (I just made those last few ) You would feel annoyed at having to clarify something the person should realize in the first place.

10. Poor subject heading. If you leave the subject field empty or simply put “Re:” in the field, you avoid an important function of email communication. When someone receives an email, it is common for them to quickly scan the subject heading of each email to see what emails need to be firstly addressed. Your goal in personal emails is not to write the most captivating subject heading so people open your email. Write an honest and specific subject heading that reflects your email message. Instead of writing “HELP!!” to your telecommunications company, you could write “Help Needed With Phone Wires”. Sometimes, if I think a subject heading is important for personal emails, I can take up to a minute to come up with a good subject.

11. Poor sent time. Be weary of the time you send your email. This mistake is dependent on a few things. Firstly, with the worldwide connectivity and never-ending discussion available over the Internet, it does not matter what time you send an email to someone living in a different time zone. Secondly, some people could not care what time you send your email as they only care about reading what you have to say. You do, however, need to be careful of the time you send emails to some people such as coworkers, managers, and clients, for example.

A job candidate’s email containing a resume sent to the human resources department at 3am will not look good as it sits in the inbox. It may jeopardize the job candidate’s chances of working with the company. Send an email at another time if you think the recipient will judge you poorly based on the time you send it.

12. Excessive Capitalization. IT IS CONSIDERED RUDE TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face. Hopefully, you would not yell in someone’s face so do not do it in the digital world. On the other end of the spectrum, do not type all your text in lower case. It is simple grammar.

13. No spell checking. I am guilty of this a few times and have been pulled up by the grammar police for teaching communication and misspelling words. (Apparently I am not allowed to misspell words!) Spell check your more formal emails. Most popular email providers should provide the option of spell checking. If your email service does not have a spell checker, you can copy your email into a word editing document to spell check it.

14. Poor use of attachments. Any email attachment over one mega byte (approximately 1000KB) is pushing email etiquette rules. Not everyone has broadband or cable, and these people do not want to spend 5 minutes downloading an unnecessary file. For large attachments, you are better off using file upload services such as Mega File Upload and 2shared. With these services, you upload a file to their website and they give you a link you can send to others where they can download the file.

Another rule for email attachments is to consider the format of your attachment. Not everyone can open a file with the .odt extension.

15. Requesting delivery and read receipts. Delivery and read receipts is a feature in all email programs (that I’m aware of). The feature lets you send an email and have the recipient confirm it was received. You are notified with an email that they received your email only if they confirm it. The feature is therefore an unreliable way to check if someone receives your email. It also adds more clutter to an already busy inbox. In most cases, you don’t need to know if an email was received because modern technology with email deliverability is good.

If you need to check whether your email was received, ask the person in your email to reply saying they got your message. If your message is really that important, which it rarely is over email, maybe you should phone the person. Do not blame the recipient of your email for a problem you can control.

16. Write. Send. Edit. That is obviously in the wrong order if you follow good email etiquette. We sometimes think about editing our email once we have sent it. Get this common email mistake in the right order: 1) Write, 2) Edit, and 3) Send. Wow! Submit. Done.

About the Author

Joshua Uebergang, aka "Tower of Power", is a communication skills coach, author, and owner of Australian company Tower of Power. Visit his blog and sign-up free to get communication techniques, relationship-boosting strategies, and life-building tips by email, along with blog updates, and more! Go now to http://www.towerofpower.com.au/free

Did this Article Interest You?

1) Tell friends, coworkers, and family about it by clicking the "ShareThis" link near the green button in the gray-colored box below. 2) Reprint or quote the article under the conditions described here. 3) If you're not signed up to the Tower of Power (ToP) newsletter, get your free trail-subscription to receive more great articles and advice. Simply enter your name and email below to sign up now:

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Ways to Resolve Conflict When Others Avoid It
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. Top 15 Dumb Mistakes People Make in Relationships