From the course: Communication Foundations (2018)

Tool kit: Email

From the course: Communication Foundations (2018)

Tool kit: Email

“

- Let's do an email audit to practice your email writing. Go to your sent folder and print out your last five messages. Now go through and label each of the hard copy emails with the word message, action, and details where you find them. Next, use this chart to evaluate each of your labeled emails. Give yourself a plus if your email was spot-on for the criteria, a check if you did okay, and a minus if this area needed some work. Did you find your action request right upfront in the first or second sentence of your message? Next, imagine you're the reader. Would you know exactly what to do next, and is the action easy for you to take? Was every word in the email necessary, or can you be more concise? Let's think back to our communication building blocks. What did you want your reader to think, feel, and do? Does your word choice create the right tone for this message? Have you considered the knowledge level of your reader and tailored accordingly? Was email the best channel of communication for this message? And was this the best time to send the email? Finally, read each of your messages searching for errors, grammatical, punctuation, spelling. Did you find anything? Once you've completed the chart, notice if any patterns emerge. Zoom in on those problem areas before you ever hit send again.

Contents