The professional email
The parts of an email, To, Cc and Bcc, the subject line, the greeting, the signature, replying, replying to all or forwarding, and the usual mistakes: writing a message that is understood and can be found again.
- 28 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
Cc: what is it?
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The field that sends the message to someone who only needs to be kept informed, with nothing to do; all the recipients can see that person.
To is for those who must act, Cc for those who must know. Putting twenty people on Cc “to be covered” drowns the ones who actually have something to do.
You send your internship report to your supervisor to be approved before 20 March. Which subject line fits?
- Internship report: approval by 20 March
- A question about my internship report
- URGENT!!! Internship report to read now
- Re: Re: Fwd: Internship at your place
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Internship report: approval by 20 March
A good subject line gives the topic, the expected action and the deadline. “A question” says nothing about the request, capitals and exclamation marks shout without informing, and an old thread subject no longer describes the message.
To write to thirty students without showing their addresses, put them in …; the person who only needs to be informed goes in ….
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To write to thirty students without showing their addresses, put them in Bcc; the person who only needs to be informed goes in Cc.
Recipients in To act, those in Cc are informed, those in Bcc are hidden from the others.
Bcc: what is it?
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The field that sends the message to recipients the others cannot see; it is used to write to a list without exposing the addresses.
An address is personal data: writing to thirty students in To gives each of them the addresses of the other twenty-nine.
A client writes “the site is slow”. A colleague who has never been in the exchange must handle the request. What do you do?
- I forward it with a sentence saying what I expect of him
- I reply to the client with the colleague in Bcc, telling him nothing
- I reply all and add the colleague on Cc without a word
- I tell him to look for the message in the shared inbox
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I forward it with a sentence saying what I expect of him
Forwarding gives your colleague the whole history, and the opening sentence says what he must do. A Bcc or Cc addition with no explanation does not say who must act, and sending him to search a shared inbox leaves him guessing which message to handle.