How to write a decent email?

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For people in the workplace, email is an important way to communicate work, so does the writing of work mails have some standard to follow? What are the issues to be aware of in writing and using English in Chinese? This article provides some references for you.

The following is not a specification, just write the summary of the mail, please be sure to according to their own company, the actual situation of the team into thinking, the content is too long, manual code word is not easy, in order to avoid impatient people mistakenly for I write in the theory, first refined view

1. Make sure that things are understood

2. On the premise of 1, as short as possible

3. If necessary, can be wordy, not for short and short

4.HTML format and TXT format selection, consistent with the team can be

5. Consider the audience's reading experience after finishing

6. Make your message easy to retrieve

7. Simplify and simplify

Pure job Email Writing can be roughly divided into two parts, ideas and rhetoric. (Here is a distinction, a part of the e-mail is used to engage in relationships, wrangling, division of responsibility, these emails can be written in accordance with traditional letters)

A-thinking part, some general principles can be used as a guide to writing

1, "war reporter" principle

Imagine oneself is a war reporter, in hail flying time to report the current situation, in every word is likely to have a gun son find on the forehead, nonsense, cliché, Mandarin, empty words are omitted, straight cut theme is the most appropriate. For example, as a system deployer, report to a leading technical leader about a major problem in the customer's site, can use such a way of thinking to write: A system B module is currently unable to run, deployment log see annex 1, error information see annex 2, the client environment see annex 3. Customer requirements 24h solution, otherwise will be delayed online. A sentence to condense all the key information, the relevant but lengthy technical information is communicated with the attachment, which ensures that the other party understands the cause of the incident and the possible outcome immediately after seeing the message, and if there is too much concern, still use the rhetoric of "respectable leadership" May cause the other person to omit important information.

Make sure that you see the purpose of the email at the first sight.

2, "pyramid" principle

Imagine the typical structure of the pyramid. I think all emails (and even other practical articles) should follow this structure: The center is clear, the narrative is layered, and the layers are spread out.

On the pyramid principle of books, there is a name of the "pyramid principle" can be studied in depth, here only to tell me the specific summary of the law. ("Pyramid principle" http://book.douban.com/subject/1020644/)

A. Filter out what you want to say by using the principle of war journalism.

Find a few key points and then sift through them until you find a center with only one, which is the ultimate goal of all your statements. Let's take the example just now to explain, customer site of major problems, I need to tell a lot of things to help others judge, such as log, error information, environment, etc., but in fact carefully analyzed, these things are only to solve the "system deployment Failed" problem, and then carefully analyzed, to resolve "system deployment failed" can be avoided after " System delay on line ", and can avoid project failure, customer distrust, and eventually bring all the clues to the issue of a point to" maintain customer trust. "

B. Analyze the message recipient's understanding of the center point.

If it goes without saying, demote to the next center point, and if you may not understand it, keep the center point around it to expand the description. The other is a leading technology leader, for the "maintenance of customer trust" This is naturally enough to understand, so downgrade, choose "Project Failure", there is enough consensus, and then downgrade "Project Delay on line", at this point, the big leadership may not be more sober than the field personnel, because Hango, The fact that he can see is limited, and his task is to report the fact to the other party in a clear and positive manner, so that he has enough resources to judge and coordinate the resources, so the selection of "Project Delay on line" is the center.

C. Describe a level of information that is most directly related to a central point.

Project latency The most immediate correlation is "deployment failure," but the deployment failure is a result rather than a process, so you need to continue to describe why the deployment failed. Usually doing one thing has so many information, "I have what resources to do, how to do, what results", these three aspects of deployment failure is directly related to information.

D. Continue to describe the "direct information" of "direct information".

This will go into a loop that will be attached to the center information in a layered way to enrich the support system of the central information. In e-mail, you need to use different ways to attach, such as pictures, charts, attachment documents, etc. Information, such as log and Operation Records, is valuable, but because the information is too long, the central point does not directly help, but must be in a way that does not interfere with reading, hanging attachments is a better choice, which can ensure that the other party in need of access when it is not difficult to obtain, without the need to get to the time to avoid directly.

Usually, the two principles, through continuous written contact and generalization, can ensure that their e-mail output is thinking appropriate.

The B-rhetoric part, everyone has their own style of writing, but in the nature of the work of e-mail, need to properly restrain their code word habits.

1. Punctuation

This part is the most easy to ignore, a lot of work N years old colleagues in the writing e-mail is either not symbols, or disorderly add symbols. For example, every word with a question mark at the end, running around the exclamation point, translation cavity dashes and so on. I have an e-mail punctuation in the heart of the bottom line, that is, "can not standardize, but must rule."

For example, sometimes because the input method and other problems can not use the standard Chinese period, I simply use the English period, or even the minus sign, but it will be used regularly, such as all the minus sign is the meaning of the period, to avoid the other side can not see the meaning of symbols, and other daily chat when I used to the end of three periods, But try to avoid these personal habits in e-mail, even if you don't use punctuation correctly, but at least don't become a potential reading barrier.

2. Font

Default font

If the company has norms, strict implementation, if there is no specification, keep the default font, because the other side does not know the other eye vision, reading occasions, reading equipment, the default font is the safest choice.

Bold

Only a word that is deliberately emphasized, in general, when only one bold phrase appears in a paragraph, emphasis on the effect is the best, and there are three or four or even more bold, the effect is reduced, "emphasis equals no emphasis", so find the one you need most, and then consider whether it is worth bold.

Italic

In addition, in any case should be cautious to "italic", as far as possible to avoid the use of the current win platform italic is rough. Refer to this question (http://www.zhihu.com/question/20120243)

3. Color

Safe color: red, green

In addition to red (representing emphasis or danger) and green (represented through and safe) can be used moderately, other colors as far as possible to avoid use.

A variety of colors, given the callout

If you have to use a variety of colors, must be in a conspicuous place to give the color of the callout, otherwise the mail after many changes, the reader will not understand the meaning of color and miss, misunderstanding information.

4. Alignment

Zhou Alignment

I've seen many colleagues add two spaces before writing a new paragraph, even some programmers add four spaces (because an English space is 1/4 characters long), but in email, the paragraph should avoid adding spaces at the beginning of the "Web age new text typesetting problem", not here to spread the discussion. (Refer to the @ Lianghai answer: http://www.zhihu.com/question/19572531/answer/12254947)

End of paragraph alignment

Do not use carriage return control line, because in their own client settings look beautiful to the return line, to someone else's device will likely be a visual disaster, refer to this picture (left as the original screen, the right for a small screen under the display effect).

5. Line-Wrapping and line spacing

Manual blank Line

After expressing a complete paragraph backward, as far as possible manual empty line, because in different reading equipment, without this empty line will lead to dense text wall, this visual pressure will directly affect the reader's understanding, white can allow people to read when there is respite and understanding of the gap.

appropriate spacing

Line spacing can be between the default spacing or within 1.5 times times of space, depending on how long, higher spacing will allow the reader to jump too much of the sight of visual fatigue.

6. Writing Description Technique

To sum up the email writing techniques I recommend, "Choose simple and accurate adjectives and adverbs, use a phrase with a certain meaning and avoid piling up complex terms".

Choose simple and accurate adjectives and adverbs

This is mainly for the preference of novel e-mail writing methods, such as the need to use "beautiful" instead of "magnificent" and so on, work email is not prose, need to ensure pragmatic.

Use a phrase with a certain meaning

Splitting a long sentence into a short phrase can make it easier for the reader to understand, such as when the project was put on the line because there was a failure in the customer site that caused the redundant TMP file loss due to the failure to install a program. Can be disassembled for the project postponed to the line, because there was an installation failure in the field, the failure was caused by a program installation failure, due to the loss of redundant TMP files.

Avoid piling up complex terminology

This one may differ from technical colleagues, as the terminology is equivalent to Esperanto when most Rd communicates with each other.

But most of the people outside the RD line don't understand what Rd says, "I'm going to inherit your" a method "or" Give me an interface. "So when your co-workers email each other, you need to make sure that you're writing something that the other person can read, such as the following (the reader is a financial colleague). You open the browser, enter 1234, and then look at the system console, the inside of the p parameter copy to me. You can switch to IE, or 360 browsers, in the address bar (above that has http:\\ words) enter 1234, and then look at the open page, the left side of a menu, by the middle of the position has a function called "System console", point to open it, and then look at the pop-up window, the top has a row of English, The name is P the back of the box of things copied down to me. Rough looks a lot of nonsense, but this way e-mail is the most guaranteed effect, because the understanding of information between colleagues is different, and information is not equal to the main obstacle to communication is not smooth, plainly is "you said I do not understand, I said you do not understand, both sides must be reciprocating several times to understand each other."

7. Title

Email headlines are also often overlooked, but this is important to ensure that you and the other side in the future to find the relevant information accuracy.

The right title is generally the most comprehensive summary, the beginning of the introduction, the most dotting the description.

The most comprehensive generalization

"About XX project in XX customer site deployment failure and site situation description"

The first primer

XX XX customer Site Deployment failure

The most dotting description

"XX customer Site Deployment failure will likely lead to delayed line" These are practical examples, based on the actual situation to weigh.

8. Other

Other emails include signature documents, message importance, message formats, and reader's environmental forecasts.

Signature file

The signature file is mainly used to allow the other person to obtain their own other contact methods, the company has unified requirements, the need to strictly implement, if there is no uniform requirements, the need to set a fixed format, including personal name \ English name, the company officially registered name, Department \ Project team, mobile phone, landline, MSN and other necessary information.

Important degree

Unless you are burning the butt, do not use the importance of this setting, so as not to rewrite the Wolf's story, "The Wolf came to the modern email version."

Message format

Usually set to HTML format, if there are special requirements can also consider txt plain text, but the latter will have no visual format to say, generally not recommended.

The reader's environmental prediction

This part is actually a bit speculative, can also be seen as "email communication in the user experience", such as the other side often use 12-inch small Ben, as far as possible to set the table a little more compact, the other side if it is a business trip in the hotel, send the mail as far as possible to avoid sending large attachments, and other ways to