What is the difference between a business letter and a business email?
A business letter contains the street mailing addresses of the writer and recipient, as well as signatures and more space to communicate messages. A business email usually will not contain the street mailing address of the recipient. A business email is usually required to be even more concentrated and briefer than a printed letter.
What to copy and what to delete.
When you answer an email, you should quote the part of the message that you are dealing with, and delete previous messages that have been resolved or are no longer essential right now.
What tone to use.
Be pleasant but not too friendly in business emails, especially if you do not know the person you are writing to. Some professors may be offended if you call them by their first name. Avoid jokes unless you know the person you are writing to, since people can be easily offended by jokes. Avoid informal punctuation such as exclamation points. End the email with best regards, cordially, or respectfully instead of xoxo, kisses, hugs, love, or anything else too intimate. Avoid emoticons, artwork, colors, abbreviations, or anything else that might look too cute such as pictures of bunnies or smiley faces. To be respectful in business emails, it is always better to look reliably dull in black and white than to use colors which many email programs provide. Too much decoration of an email message gives the impression that you believe what you have to say is so boring that unless you color it pink, people will fall asleep before they read it. Some office email programs add a quote of some kind as a thought for the day, but since such thoughts almost never have anything to do with the purpose of your email, it is best to eliminate these as a useless distraction.
Typeface and point.
Times New Roman 12 point type is considered the most legible for writing. If you write in a typeface too small or too thin, some people may have difficulty reading it.
The importance of double-checking.
Always take the time to reread what you have written before you send it. If you write the message first on a word document, you can use spell check to make sure common words are spelled correctly. Try not to repeat things – if you write things once, that should be enough. If you expect or need a reply, make this clear. Add something like: I am looking forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. If what you are sending is just for the information of the person, be sure to say Just FYI –
English writing style.
Avoid foreign phrases and abbreviations. Make it very clear in English what you want or need. A common mistake in Thai English is when even highly educated people use Latin abbreviations such as viz. or i.e. or etc. incorrectly. Unless you are absolutely sure what such terms mean in Latin and when they should be used in English, avoid all such abbreviations and write with English words instead.
Be active.
Use active verbs and not passive ones. It is more direct and clearer to write Khun B chaired the meeting instead of The meeting was chaired by Khun B. Try to build your sentences starting with a subject, then a verb, then an object. This helps make your sentences easy to understand.
Where to put numbers.
Put numbers at the beginning of sentences, especially years. If they are buried in the middle or end of sentences, they can be overlooked. If you are in doubt about a sentence you wrote, put quotes around it and google the sentence. You can see if millions of other English users have written the same sentence or one like it. If so, it is probably standard English. If not, it may be Thai-style nonstandard English and incorrect.
Using that and which.
That adds essential information in what is called a restrictive clause. Which adds extra information in a nonrestrictive clause.
The Pridi Banomyong Library opens at 8am, which is the time many students wake up.
The second part of the sentence can be eliminated and the remainder still makes sense and looks complete. That means you can use which in this case. However, if the sentence is Computers are the only products that we sell, the words that we sell are necessary for the sentence to have any meaning. The word to use in this case is that. If you take away the words that we sell, all you have left is Computers are the only products and that does not make sense.
Avoid confusing affect and effect.
Affect is a verb meaning to influence. Effect is a noun that means result. The 2011 floods affected the Thammasat University Libraries and had a bad effect on the rest of the university, too.
How to ask for things politely in your email.
Even for native English speakers, phrasing emails politely can be challenging. Even though the person reading your email will understand that you are not a native English speaker, try to reread your message before sending to make sure it looks especially polite. Even if you are in a rush, there are ways to be extremely kind when demanding results. Instead of saying: If we do not get an answer by 5 p.m. today, we will miss our deadline, say: We would very much appreciate a reply before 5pm today, to meet our deadline.
Other ways to be polite in emails.
Try to be positive rather than negative. When something can be said without using no or not it sounds happier and less threatening. Thank people a lot. Be sure to always include thanks at the beginning and sometimes the end of messages: Thanks for your help, thanks again, thanks for all your hard work, and so on make it clear we appreciate someone else’s efforts.
Is this email necessary?
The point of a business or professional email is to get someone to do something. If you do not want or need anyone to do anything, it is possible you do not need to send an email. Say what you want or need immediately. By not wasting the other person’s time, you are showing respect. They have very little time and the sooner they know what you want or need, the easier it is for them. Say it in the first line. Before sending the email, ask if the recipient will be able to know from the subject line and first sentence what you want. If not, you must redo them. Do not assume that whoever reads the email is fully informed about everything or will remember all the past discussion about an ongoing topic. Remind people who you are and what you do and what you want.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).