Coding Horror: When Email Goes Bad

September 20, 2005

When Email Goes Bad

It's easy to fire off an email with barely any effort at all. And that's exactly how much effort goes into most emails: none. Ole Eichhorn's Tyranny of Email offers a succinct set of guidelines to avoid thoughtless email abuse:

Never criticize anyone in email. Avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or phone calls instead.
Be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails.
Observing some formality is important.
Don't hesitate to review and revise important emails.
Remember that email is a public and permanent record.

Ole published another article, Tyranny Revisited, with some commentary on the response to his original article.

43 folders recently published a great article on writing sensible email messages:

Understand why you're writing: what's the goal?
Assume no one will read more than the first two sentences of your email.
Write a great subject line.
Fit it on one screen with no scrolling.
Ask for what you want.

Similar rules apply to instant messaging, telephone, and even face-to-face conversations. The key difference is the amount of effort required for each communication method: the easier it is, the more you need to consider before doing it.

Of course, the real art is knowing when to escalate from IM to email, from email to face-to-face, and when to drop the ultimate communication A-bomb: calling a meeting.

Posted by Jeff Atwood View blog reactions

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Comments

Before anyone posts a comment, hey, how about that Lifehacker's Guide to Weblog Comments? ;)

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/top/special-lifehackers-guide-to-weblog-comments-126654.php

Jeff Atwood on September 21, 2005 07:32 PM

Its also a good idea to assume that *everyone* may read it, considering how easy it is for others to forward mail around.

And in the financial industry (where I work) the Sarbanes-Oxley act pretty much assures that your mail will *never* be deleted.

David Avraamides on September 21, 2005 07:47 PM

The 43 folders advice is interesting because except for point 5, it's the same "inverted pyramid" style that newswriters use. (One presumes that the authors of news articles don't ask for what they want. Perhaps they expect us just to infer it. :-) )

Writing advice is pretty much universal, and just coz it's email doesn't mean the same rules don't apply ...

mike on September 21, 2005 10:47 PM

Something I've done in the past is set up a rule in Outlook to hold mail for [x] number of minutes before sending it...this has saved me in the past as on more than one occassion I've asked myself..."is that message really email worthy", or even saved my ass from sending a heated message to someone.

jayson knight on September 22, 2005 12:22 AM

> Writing advice is pretty much universal, and just coz it's email doesn't mean the same rules don't apply ...

Oh, really? So writing an IM or a blog entry is just like writing an email?

Jeff Atwood on September 22, 2005 02:42 AM

Not *exactly* alike, but very similar. Business writing style guidelines aim for clarity and effectiveness; the same basic concerns are always present.

Are you being contrary on purpose Jeff?

Daniel Pritchett on September 22, 2005 10:03 AM

Good business writing may have some broad similarities. However, I think there are some major differences in how you write an email, a blog entry, and an IM..

Jeff Atwood on September 22, 2005 01:19 PM

Here is Guy Kawasaki's guide on this topic, "The Effective Emailer"

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/the_effective_e.html

Jeff Atwood on February 6, 2006 05:23 AM