It’s recently come to the attention of the 2WC that the art of the well written email has gone by the wayside. Or perhaps it never existed.
Either way, it seems a disturbingly large number of people do not know how to use email, and the worst part is, most of them don’t even realize it.
Yes, I’m talk to you:
- One word responders
- All lower-case typists
- Exclamation point abusers
- “Reply all” challenged
- Signature-less senders
I’m sure I left some major offenders off the list, but I think you get the point.
If you find yourself suprised by the fact that you fall into the above list, don’t freak out. We’re not upset with you, just your careless email habits.
Now obviously, there are times and exceptions to every rule. For personal emails, you probably don’t need always include a signature. Also, if you have to evacuate your office/home/local Starbucks due to an emergency, but really need to send out that important email first, a one worded response would be okay. You could even throw in an exclamation point for good measure. And if you can’t quite make it to the shift key, all lower-case, also acceptable.
As far as the “reply all” usage, well that comes down to your own good judgment. However, for those of you who don’t know how to use this handy feature which keeps all other message recipients in the loop, might I suggest switching to pen and paper.
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…just for fun: