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Communicating Through Email
1010
Communicating Through Email
Most of your day to day communication
at the university, both offi cial and unoffi cial,
will be done by email. The simplicity of
using email technically should not
distract you from the care that needs
to be taken as you write.
The most important thing to remember
when you write an email is to consider its impact
on your reader. Think about why you are writing
the email and consider the tone and the way you express yourself. The more distant
the relationship is between yourself and your reader, the more formal the tone and
expression must be and the more carefully constructed your email will have to be. In
other words, you should observe email etiquette.
This chapter helps you to:
●
Know the basics
●
Be aware of your relationship with your reader
Without email etiquette, you may unintentionally give a poor impression of yourself
to the reader. If you do this, you may fail to achieve your objective in writing the email
and your reputation may be damaged. Conversely, a well written email will not only
succeed in getting your message across but also create a good impression of you.
10.1 Know the Basics
Tone and presentation are the two basic elements you need to pay attention to when
you write a formal email. Try to do the following:
●
Use your NUS email address when writing to people at NUS. Emails from
idiosyncratic email addresses may get “spammed”.
●
Compose a subject line that is concise, relevant to the topic and will get the reader’s
attention, e.g. Apologies for absence from tutorial; Request for reference letter.
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