Sunday, February 1, 2009
Week 5, Chapter 5: Email and memorandums
Read this article about tips for writing email in the workplace: http://careerplanning.about.com/od/communication/a/email_tips.htm The author provides seven tips. Describe an email you have received that broke one or more of this tips. Be specific. Explain what the email said, which tip(s) it violated, and suggest how the email could have been improved.
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Before responding to this blog, I looked through several emails from people at school, my lawyer and his secretary. The only mistake I found was in a sentence using the word “however”. The semi colon before the word was omitted, but the comma after was there. I couldn’t find anything else. The emails were very professional, especially from my lawyer and his secretary. Even when they would send a quick note to reply to one of my emails, I could only find that one mistake. As for the school, they are pretty professional when they need to be and fun when it suits the subject. I noticed how the blog instructions said, ”one or more of this tips” instead of “these tips” even though the superbowl was on when I read it.
Since I’ve been in this class, I notice mistakes on personal emails even when it doesn’t matter. There are the usual abbreviations, but I notice the spelling and punctuation errors. I have always reread and corrected things because, even to friends, I don’t want to sound uneducated.
In conclusion, I agree with the last tip which is waiting to fill in the “TO” until your email is complete. If an important thing is left out, another email would have to be sent and that could be awkward.
I am a person that emails more than actually talks to the people in my life. Is that wrong? Probably not the best way of commuicating, but it's what I prefer most of the time. Since I do get a lot of emails in a day i notice there are more mistakes in puncuation and grammer in the ones I get from my kids or other young people. My daughter is the worst for writing emails using words that she abbreviated on her own. These are words that usually would not be abbreviated, so I have no clue what the words even mean. I always ask her if when speaking to people, if she talks that way. She blankly looks at me says, "No". Then I have to ask her why is it that when writing emails or even papers for school that her grammer is horrible.
In my former position I would be the in-between for customers that had complaints. Most times they would send emails directly to me. This one customer, who loved to complain every Friday, would send me emails with some words all in caps with the angry face icon next to these words. After about a month of this, I simply called her to ask her what it is she is so unhappy about. Her comment to me was" I'm not unhappy, I just want to get my point across". In my opinion, using those face icons in a business setting screams "unprofessional". I later found out that this customer only complains on Fridays because she has to pay us. Again, very unprofessional.
I love one of my friends quite a bit, and we've been friends since we were both in middle school. When she sends me e-mails, they are terrible. Her grammar, spelling, and punctuation are absolutely frightening and sometimes I have to reread her messages two or three times to understand what she's saying. It's annoying, but after all these years, I've gotten used to it.
I do know that her writing would never pass in any regard in a professional setting. Writing like that makes you sound like either you are uneducated, sloppy or just don't care about the appearance you are putting forward.
After reading all of the "tips" they gave us, I went back and looked at the emails that I have received over the past couple weeks. For the most part, everybody followed the rules they talked about. However, one rule that I didn't know about, and people that email me don't follow was the rule about asking for permission to send an attachment. I have professors that send me attachments with the key terms for the week. I also send emails with attachments all the time, I never realized that it could have viruses attached to it.
The one email I will always remember was one that came to me from a Regional Manager. It violated the rule of capitalizing all letters and presenting itself as an email of shouting.
I experienced an incident at the workplace, involving a privacy issue between my store manager and me. I filed a complaint against this store’s manager with the company’s corporate headquarters and addressed the email to the Head of Human Resources. I received a reply email from the Human Resource Department and when I opened it up it was written in all capital letters and had very few punctuation marks. My first impression was that she was yelling at me for filing the complaint, but after gathering more information about the Head of Human Resources, I found that she had been with the company for over 20 years and she probably didn’t receive the proper training in composing an appropriate email. I did give her the benefit of the doubt and to ensure that we were communicating efficiently, I composed my replies in the same manner so she would understand them. The issue itself did get resolved, but I have to admit that writing an email like that did not feel right.
This situation will always be remembered and has made me a strong believer in learning how to use the computer properly. By taking a few classes in netiquette, a person could easily avoid offending someone and losing respect and credibility.
One of the mistakes I have gotton are from the school. I have gotton blank e-mails from people and then another one apologizing for accidentily sending it. I have gotton two of those this quarter alone. I would think they would be careful about what they send and when they send it.
Other than that the e-mails I have gotton from the school have been polite and respectful. They get right to the point and check their mistakes.
I was looking through a bunch of old emails and for the most part people were respectful and professional. However, in some of the messages from my friends there were numerous spelling and grammar mistakes, probably because it wasn’t a professional email so they didn’t care so much about making mistakes. My friends sometimes use the emoticons but I have never seen one in a professional email. I also have a couple different email accounts and noticed that in my one for school all the emails were very professional compared to the informal ones on my personal account. I found the rule about asking to send attachments interesting because I have never heard of the before and frequently get emails with attachment, and the sender didn’t ask me if they could send it!! In my personal email account there is a lot of room for improvement in the spelling and grammar area but they are for the most part really informal quick little notes so people don’t really pay attention to what they are typing.
I hate to say but the only thing I could was the blog assignment instructions. It isn’t really an e-mail but it works for the assignment. It states “describe an email that you have received that broke one or more of this rules.” It is supposed to say “one or more of these rules.
I had to laugh when I read this article. I went back through my e -mails and I found numerous errors. I have also made several errors. I have not received any unprofessional e-mails from this college, but I have from C.V.T.C. last semester. Teachers as well as students do not follow the seven rules. I do believe one student must have clicked "respond to all" because the whole class received an e-mail on how his truck wouldn't start in the cold. When I first opened it I was wondering why do I care? Another student brought to my attention that she also received the same e-mail. I am sure that this has happened numerous times. I am sure that I easily could have made the same mistake. Afterwards, I felt bad for thinking why should I care? I do care and I would feel bad if that happened to me. I also learned to be careful what you e-mail, because it may be forwarded without your consent!
After reviewing my emails I noticed that by using these rules it made it an easy way of weeding through the junk mail. I am signed up to business sites and receive emails for credit card loans and instant money scams which slip through. I noticed that many of these unwanted emails would have improper spelling and bad grammar. The rest of my emails were professional. However, I was unaware of the rule that you should inform your receiver that you intend to send an attachment. Many times I am guilty of breaking this rule and the rule of not entering the “to” information till the end of the email. For the most part though the emails I send and receive are of the professional level.
I have looked at several of the emails that I have received from both the school and my personal emails. The school emails have been very professional and to the point. My personal account however,could use some improvement in the punctuation and grammar department. I found it interesting to learn that you should ask permission to send an attachment because I wasn't aware of that previously.
I recently received an email back in regards to something I was inquiring about purchasing on craigslist. The reply email was short and concise; however it did break some other rules in email etiquette. They did not use correct grammar and used some abbreviations instead of spelling the whole word out. Granted, I think some abbreviations in person email are tolerable. (I am not a fan of text language in email). Also, this person may have not been fully comfortable with using a computer and not have the skills or patience to write a more detailed email. If the item I was inquiring on wasn’t so insignificant or a large purchase the email may have turned me off. A person can easily make an impression another by how they speak or write, even in email.
I send and receive many emails everyday. I know my writing needs improvement, and I suspect my correspondences could stand to polish their prose as well. My most common flaw can be found in my delivery. I often struggle sending information-rich emails that get right at the point in a clear, concise manner that avoids confusing wordiness. I see this a lot in emails I receive too. The second most common email blunder I deal with is professional formatting. When I get an email from someone and the paragraphs are uneven, the heading is too friendly, and the message is jumbled, I sigh. Isn’t anyone concerned with the presentation of their message? I make every attempt to ensure my emails look good from start to finish. They must have good balance. Despite my efforts, I will always be striving for perfection. And so, today is another day of improvement.
I have once received an e-mail without any anything as a subject so I thought that is not that important and deleted it. Later on I found out that it was from a friend of mine whom sent it. The email was information on where we will meet for our camping trip.
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