E-mail etiquette
July 24, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
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Filed under Blog
Thursday’s Management Tip for Graphic Designers
E-mail has just exploded in the last decade. Everyone does it, but not everyone does it well.
It’s always been interesting to me that the subject of e-mail manners or courtesy is another of those things that is frequently overlooked and never really dealt with.
You would think that since everyone’s doing it, that everyone would be sharing how to do “correctly”. Or at least, share some simple “rules” of conduct when emailing people.
Here’s my list (which can also be considered my pet peeves)
This list to me should be given to everyone once they get an e-mail address. I’ve got a much longer list, but I thought I’d give you the basics for now:
- Never write an e-mail if you are drunk or pissed off. You’ll write something you’ll regret and it always shows!
- Never write things that you’ll later regret or shared with others. Words come and go, but emails are forever and in writing. AND, they can be instantly sent off to a whole bunch of people.
- Don’t put the e-mail address into the To: field until you are finished. You may accidentally press send (or it somehow magically happens) before it’s ready for primetime. This way, it won’t get sent until the e-mail address is in the To: field.
- When e-mailing a group of people, their e-mail address should be in the BCC field. It’s an issue of privacy and some may not want their email spread around (or worse, become spammed by being placed on others lists inadvertently).
- The e-mail subject line should make sense and reflect the content in the e-mail! Nothing generic like “hi”. I get so much email, I’d like to see at a glance what the subject of it really is (the title “subject” in this case should not be considered a misnomer! It should really be the subject of the email!)
- Keep your e-mails short and to the point. No likes to read a loooooonnnnnnng email. If it can be said in 2 sentences, don’t take 10 to do it.
- Don’t clog inboxes with large attachments: Never clog up e-mails with huge attachments and use up the person’s allotted memory. Instead use services like YouSendIt and then send the link to the file.
- Multiple attachments: If you are sending way more than 1 attachment, Zip it!
- Don’t send “Read Notification Receipts”: It’s annoying and what’s the point? You’ll go back and tell the person, “but I know you read it!” It means they opened it, not necessarily read it.
- SPELL CHECK! It always looks bad and you never know who’s going to read it.
- Remove personal information (like phone numbers or cells) if you know that many people may get the e-mail.
- Always reply to e-mails! Believe me, the person sending them is expecting to hear back from you!!!
T A K E A W A Y S :
It’s about good manners. And with all the emails we get, these things should be no brainers!
This list (to me, at least) is about courtesy and being conscious of the fact that we get so many emails, these guidelines should be a necessity!
Spelling mistakes even your spell checker won’t catch
March 13, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
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Thursday’s Management Tip for Graphic Designers
Do you rely on your spell checker to catch your spelling mistakes? You really, really shouldn’t!
I think we’ve become lazy thinking that running our spell check is enough. It’s not.
It is vitally important to read over your copy. DO NOT depend solely on your spell checker. Here’s why:
Things to watch out when proofreading your copy:
- Homonyms: These are 2 words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings and spelling. An example is: to, too, two.
- Using the wrong word: If you write one word and mean another, the spell checker won’t guess. (Ex: Formerly instead of formally. Accept rather than except.)
- Similar but not exact words: Some words are one letter off! (Ex: Breath instead of breathe. You instead of your.)
- Compound words: May get flagged or not depending on the dictionary you are using.
- Hyphenated compound words: Anything that is hyphenated, as long as each part is spelled correctly, will not get flagged. If it’s not hyphenated and should be, it won’t get picked up either. BEWARE!
- Compound modifier: Depending if you hyphenate the modifiers together or not, it can have vastly different contexts. (Ex: Day-to-day versus day to day. Eye-to-eye versus eye to eye.)
- Spaced words: Same as with hyphenation, words that have a space and others that are compounds, have different meanings. Words like child care (a noun) and childcare (as an adjective) are different. Or my personal one, afterall. Sometimes, it’s not picked up, sometimes it is.
- Inappropriate hyphenation: One of the first lessons I learned in design school was to watch out for was hyphenation. The prime example: hyphenating therapist. Imagine having “the” on one line and “rapist” on the second. Kinda kills it, no? Of course, now I’m hyphenation-phobic, but that’s another post for another day!
There are a couple of important considerations when writing:
- First, who is your audience? Are you going to be writing in British or the US standard English? There are variations in the spelling: colour (British) vs color (US) and organise (British) vs organize (US).
- Second are you using the correct dictionary? Make sure that your dictionary is set to the proper English you are writing (US, British, Canadian, …)
- Third, keep it consistent! The other important thing to remember is to use the rules consistently. For instance, if you use makeup for most of your text, don’t suddenly start using make-up. Although both are correct, please stick to one!
C O N C L U S I O N :
Know your typing habits! You should also be aware if you keep making the same mistake.
For instance, I almost always type (or mistype) “to the“. I mean to write “to the” but somehow, I always get “tot he“.
Now, technically it is correct! It does not get flagged by my spell checker. So, it may not be what I intended, but it is correct! (HINT: What do I do? I always run a “Find/Replace” after everything I write. I do it too often!)
