Write It Well

“CC” originally meant “carbon copy,” but what does it mean now that the Internet has replaced carbon paper? Carbon copies — for those of us who remember — were thin, poor-quality reproductions of an original document. You sent a carbon copy to interested people who didn’t need to reply, unlike the intended recipient, who got the original. Electronically, CC works like this: everyone can see all the addresses in the CC field, and if any recipient hits “reply to all,” their message goes to all the original recipients AND everyone in the CC field.

When you are CC’d in an e-mail, go ahead and file the e-mail if you like. The author made no secret that you were looking at the e-mail, and felt that you would find its message relevant. If you’d like to respond, however, think carefully before choosing “reply to all”. Send your message only to people who really need to have your response.

For more tips on using e-mail in the workplace, check out E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide.

E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide just landed on the Columbia Law School reader. The book is a user-friendly handbook to crafting professional, effective e-mail. It covers everything from writing persuasively to inbox housekeeping, plus tips on grammar nitty-grits like misplaced modifiers.

“E-Mail grew up in the lawless frontier of the Internet, without the traditional rules of old-fashioned letter writing, wrote Deborah Fallows, a senior research fellow of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. “This valuable book provides much needed guidelines for managing the demands and opportunities e-mail has brought to the workplace.”

22% of workers who use e-mail say that they are required to check their business e-mail even when they aren’t at work, according to a study by the PEW Internet and American Life Project published last week. The numbers are even higher for the BlackBerry-and-iPhone set: 48% of workers with mobile e-mail say they have to check their e-mail at home.

With all this e-mail interrupting our weekends, it’s even more important that our messages are relevant, clear, and concise. Write It Well offers workshops and do-it-yourself workshop facilitator kits that can help your business reduce e-mail clutter — and leave your down-time as free as possible.

• Keep messages short. When sending e-mail that might be read on a hand-held device, keep messages short and put the key information at the top.
• Describe attachments. When sending e-mail to people on the move, always describe attachments (briefly) because they might not be able to see them right away.
• Reduce the need for lengthy responses. Try to structure messages so recipients either do not need to respond or can answer in few words.

Morethan 40 percent of the average workers’ day is spent managing e-mail. Of that, between 20 percent and 30 percent is unnecessary! Updated version of E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide is now shipping. Our popular e-mail book has been updated. The new version includes a section on instant messaging and handheld devices.

If you’re sending e-mail to someone who is likely to read your message on their PDA, remember that your reader will only see the first part of your message and if it’s a long one, they might miss whatever you included at the bottom of the message.Make sure that your main point is at the beginning of any message and if there is more than one point, summarize your main points at the beginning.

Here’s an example… I sent an e-mail to a client asking three important questions including one about the location for an upcoming training. She wrote back and offered me three paragraphs of detailed directions at the beginning of the message. The problem was thatI was reading my e-mail from my PDA so I couldn’t tell if she had answered any of my other questions because I could only see the first part of the message.

If she had started her message by telling me that she was answering my questions and would include directions at the end of themessage, I would have known exactly what the e-mail included. Make sure that your virtual communication is virtually complete and easy for your reader, wherever they are!