Mind your netiquette

Yet unlike speaking face-to-face, communicating via email is riddled with pitfalls for potential misunderstandings and wrong impressions. Unlike a face-to-face meeting or a conversation over the telephone, misunderstandings cannot always be immediately repaired. Further, email offers little opportunity for nuance; you can’t soften words by your tone of voice or rephrase a comment or use body language to facilitate understanding.

All of which makes it all the more important that you choose your language carefully – and follow good netiquette – when composing email messages.

Netiquette
Netiquette, or network etiquette, refers to how people interact with each other via email. Here are some guidelines to avoid potential misunderstandings and create a good impression by putting your best – email – forward.

Communicate professionally. Be sure to use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and paragraph structure. Keep your paragraphs short and separate them with blank lines to facilitate faster reading. Other tips include:

• Avoid trendy abbreviations such as ‘u’ for you in formal business communications. Emoticons, or combinations of keyboard characters that convey emotion when viewed sideways such as a smiley face = :-) should also be used sparingly in formal communications.

• Do not capitalize whole words that are not titles as this is generally considered SHOUTING to your reader. Instead consider using an *asterisk* around a word to emphasize a point.

• Use strong subject lines that describe the message content. This allows for easier filing and message retrieval.

• Avoid misinterpretation of dates by spelling out the month. (Example: 29 Mar 07 or Mar 29 07.)