Before You Send that Email

One of my librarian tasks was to teach writing skills for beginning seminary students, something that I did for over ten years. Most of our adult students came to us after a long absence from higher education and needed refreshers on research and writing. So, I not only focused on research and writing skills, but tried to demonstrate how good writing is essential to effective ministry.

One place where we easily get tripped up is with communication via email and social media. Hence, I did a unit on these types of communication with the goal of having them understand these media and how to use them. Below is an excerpt on how to communicate effectively via email. I hope you find this helpful.

You’ve done it. So have I. You got an Email that rang your chimes, and you fired off a response destined to get attention. But now you’re having second thoughts. Should I have sent that? Perhaps I should have waited and thought more about it. Perhaps I should have picked up the phone and talked with the person. Did I compound the problem by sending it to others?

Email is part of most of our lives whether at work, at church, or in our personal lives. Unlike text messages and most social media where the length and depth of communication is limited, email allows for both brief and substantive interactions between you and others.

Email tends more toward informality than print communication, and because we are using a screen it’s easier to ignore the standards of good writing and communication. But sloppy or poorly written emails create misunderstanding and problems. Hence, we need to practice good writing skills when using email or social media.

How to communicate with email

I use several rules for good email communication.

First. Never, never, never, never respond immediately to an email that upsets you. Wait 24 hours until you’ve had the opportunity to cool off, ponder the message, gather your thoughts, and write a proper response.

Second. Treat email like you would any written communication. Use proper grammar and punctuation. Write proper sentences. Twentieth-century communications specialist Marshall McLuhan is famous for saying, “the medium is the message.” What he means is that how we communicate is as important as what we are trying to say.

Third. Never use all-caps when you communicate by email or any social media. What does all-caps communicate? That you are screaming at the recipient and none of us likes to be screamed at. (I have the same response when I am in church, and the speaker spends a lot of time shouting or yelling at the congregation. I simply find ways to tune out that person.) Also, avoid sarcasm.

Fourth. Always (and I mean “always”) proofread your work before you hit the “send” button. If it’s an important communication, you don’t want any silly typos or errors that distract from the importance of what you’re communicating.

Five. Avoid the “send all” feature as much as possible. Only use that feature when you are communicating information for a specific work or task group. For example, when I supervised a work group of several people, I used this feature to send meeting agendas or communicate policies necessary for the group to carry out their work.

Sixth. Before sending your email, ask yourself if there is a better way of communicating. Certain subjects necessitate in-person communication. (In other words, don’t ask someone to marry you via email. Or don’t tell your supervisor by email that $20,000 is missing from an office account.) Communicate appropriately.

Seventh. Be gracious to others when writing Email (even if you’re expressing disagreement or a problem). Scripture teaches that all humans are created in the “image of God” meaning that all of us have inherent dignity and worth from our Creator even though we all contend with the consequences of the fall. Remember that when you communicate by email or social media, you are communicating to fellow image bearers.

I like how David Shipley and Will Schwalbe put it, “The most effective emails manage to be clear and succinct but also friendly.” If you want to learn more about how to communicate well via email, I highly recommend their book Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Home and Office (Knopf, 2007).

When I took communications in college, Marshall McLuhan was in his prime and one thing he said has stayed with me: “The medium is the message.” What McLuhan meant was that how you say something is just as important as what you are saying. In other words, you need to think as carefully about how you communicate something as what you actually say. Whether it is preaching a sermon, leading a meeting, writing an email or Facebook post, or interacting with others we need to think about how we express ourselves. That does not mean we neglect speaking or writing the truth or describing reality; it does mean that we want to make sure that the way we say something does not distract from the message we bring. None of us is perfect, but the more thoughtful we are about what we say and how we say it, the more effective our work will be.