A Quick Guide to Writing Better Emails

This book is your quick guide to writing better emails. Ten short chapters outline the strategies you need for writing emails that get the responses you want and mark you as a professional. People spend a lot of time on their computers or smartphones communicating for fun. Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging have made us very fond of short forms, acronyms and multiple punctuation marks!!! But business writing is different. Writing for business has two purposes: 1. to make your company look good. 2. to make you look good. In ancient times, such as those when I first went to work in an office, managers had secretaries. Managers dictated letters and secretaries typed them up, corrected the grammar, and were responsible for accurate spelling and formatting. Those days are gone. There is no skilled buffer be-tween your thoughts and the words that go to your cli-ents, co-workers, and your boss. And the pace has changed, too. Letters could be proofread, retyped, and changed again, before they were finally put in the mailbox at the end of the day. The recipient knew that it could take a week before he or she got the answer to the original letter. Business today would collapse with that kind of time line. The expectation is that email gets answered within a matter of hours or even parts of hours. Quick response is expected. Your limited time is the reason that this book is short. You don’t have the time to muddle through a large text. You need quick fixes fast. Read this book from the beginning or just read the chapters that apply to the questions you have now.

Heather Wright is a busy freelancer and part-time communications instructor. This book offers you the information you need based on Heather’s years of working in various office environments, teaching business communications, and practising good communication skills as a freelance writer and workshop leader.