The way you communicate over email can have a large impact on how your recipients receive your message. Knowing a couple email etiquette tips can help you be more effective in your communication. The rules of email etiquette are not new. They have come from letter writing etiquette.

The Content
Keep your emails concise. Make your sentences and paragraphs short and simple. The longer it is, the less likely people will be to read it. Use the active voice. It keeps your sentences shorter and makes them more interesting to read.

Before sending your email, use a spell checker and proofread it. As you’ve hopefully already discovered, spell checker doesn’t catch everything. In fact, it can miss a lot of errors such as know and now; too and to; and their, they’re and there. Look for and correct punctuation and grammar mistakes.

Additionally, emoticons and texting language should be used judiciously. They make your message informal and can be inappropriate in certain situations. As a rule, keep your correspondences professional by using proper wording to convey your meaning and tone.

Email etiquette encourages you to be polite, taking time to appreciate those who help you and to say please. Don’t take offense or assume you know what someone means. Ask for clarification.

Answer questions. Nothing is more frustrating than asking a question and getting back a response that doesn’t answer your question at all.
Don’t include large attachments without first notifying the sender. It may go directly to a spam folder or the recipient’s inbox may be too full to receive it. If you are sending photos, resize them. Make sure the recipient has the software that supports your attachments.

The Format
Make it look like a letter. Start and end with a proper salutation and valediction. Once you have established a conversation, you do not need to continue including a salutation in the message thread. Pay attention to how the recipient signs his or her name and use that in your responses.

ALL CAPITALS COMES ACROSS AS SCREAMING. all lowercase appears lazy. Bolding words can have a similar effect to all caps. When used sparingly, bolded words emphasize important information. Check the spelling of the recipient’s name. Names are important to people, and it won’t go unnoticed if it’s misspelled. Uncorrected spelling errors tell the sender that the correspondence isn’t a high priority to you. Also, be aware of the tone of your letter that comes from using multiple exclamation or question marks.

Sending Mail
Email is not as confidential as people think. Since it is not encrypted, do not include personal information such as passwords, and credit card and social security numbers. Also, do not include information that could cause liability to you or your company.

Take time to respond. If you don’t have time to answer a question immediately, at least let the sender know you received it and estimate when you will send a full response. The appropriate response time depends on the situation.

Don’t overuse important, urgent and high priority labels. Sparing uses add more emphasis and help the sender keep track of vital information in his or her inbox.

Message threads can be a helpful tool to keep track of conversations. This is particularly helpful for those that occur over a longer period of time. Keep in mind, however, that the length can become excessive. If the thread is becoming long, cut out less relevant portions.

Just because you can send it to everyone doesn’t mean you should. Consider who needs to read your message and CC or reply all only when necessary. CC is usually addressed to recipients for FYI. BCC stands for blind carbon copy and the recipient does not show up on the list of recipients.

Don’t forward mail you wouldn’t want to receive. Chain letters are a pain. If you don’t add a subject line, your email may go directly to the spam folder.

Typically, you don’t notice good email etiquette until it is missing. Email etiquette can make the difference between making a good impression or not. Most tips and techniques of email etiquette are simple and easy to remember. It’s just a matter of doing them.