5 Chapter 5: Email Pragmatics: The Short(er) Version
☞ Authorial commentary is italicized.
The Purpose of This Section
This section is meant to be a short summary of different pragmatics concepts that play a major role in shaping the effectiveness of email writing.
Instead, this section is built around a series of short questions and corresponding explanations of why your answer to each question may be relevant to the perceived quality and success of your message.
For a quick overview- just look at the main questions.
While all questions provide important guidance, especially important questions are bolded and italicized.
☞ All questions are equal, but some questions are more equal than others.
The BIG A-B-C-D:
A. BE QUICK- email is a very time sensitive form of writing, and an imperfect email is often better than something that arrives late.
B. BE EFFECTIVE RE: YOUR INTENDED OUTCOME– shorter emails work better, and are easier to read. Use grammar, word choice, and an awareness of pragmatics to focus on your intended outcome.
C. MAKE IT EASY FOR RECIPIENTS– Be aware of what your intended outcome will require in terms of effort, timing, and action steps. Make your email shorter to make it easier for a reader to understand. The less ‘work’ your email demands from your recipient, the better.
D. BE AWARE OF HOW RECIPIENTS WILL FEEL– Read emails- even briefly- to check them for errors and to think how your email will be received prior to sending. Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes, and pick up on feedback, how your email fared, and learn from the examples of others.
STEPS ONE THROUGH TWELVE TO AVOID AN EMAIL COMPLEX:
1. What is your intended outcome in writing your email?
It’s difficult to conceive of human communication that lacks some kind of intended outcome. Even speech that lacks an outward, actionable purpose- ‘How was your Friday?’- can have a social or emotional outcome (to establish rapport, to convey emotional caring, to express friendship, to insult, to flirt, etc.).
Whether the intended outcome is an action by the recipient, or a form of ‘going on the record’, or if it’s just about a relationship between the sender & recipient- every email has an intended outcome the sender wants to prompt by sending an email.
It’s important that both sender and recipient comprehend an intended outcome of the email. If your email requires follow-up to understand it, includes an unwieldy and impractical list of action items, or doesn’t have a mutually comprehended intended outcome, it is unlikely to succeed.
One exception to the usual situation described above occurs when sender and receiver have different, but still fully coalesced ideas about the intended outcome of an email. It can be a valid strategy to make an ask for intended outcomes other than the actual request itself. An example outside of email writing would be preparing a question in a job interview that demonstrates particular expertise in an area important to that company. Emailing a hiring manager with a question about the position for a job you’re interested in can also be an example of this- the question may be irrelevant, but now, the hiring manager knows your name.
☞ This can be a high risk strategy- asking inane questions can annoy your recipient, and if it’s clear you’re only engaging with someone via email for reasons other than the actual request it ‘s likely to make a strongly negative impression.
One strategy email writers sometimes use is avoiding an explicit ask in the email. For example, in an academic context, this could involve a student describing the severity of their COVID-19 symptoms in an email to a teacher the morning of an important deadline. The student might not want to directly ask for an extension- instead, they choose to implicitly request a change in the due date by describing, in detail, the reasons why the deadline is impractical. However, an implied outcome is still an intended outcome.
☞ This is another high-risk strategy, and not one I’d recommend except when used well ahead of any deadlines and for a good reason. This is a cultural value- but in my culture, I’d consider this approach to be exploitive of emotion and likely to lead to a pragmatic failure. Again, this value is cultural- I think other cultures and contexts would actually value this approach- but my experience has been that this approach is unlikely to work well. Avoiding an ask but implying it with a description of the underlying context greatly increases workload on the recipient- they have to craft a sensitive reply email and essentially guess what the sender is actually requesting. I’ve found this strategy is especially likely to be used when the sender doesn’t grasp the power dynamics appropriately
2. What is the timeline, if any, for action by the recipient?
The phrase that a ‘lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine’ is absolutely true- it is also crucial to keep in mind when emailing.
☞ After a significant amount of time, I was unable to find the origin of this saying. There’s no clear original source, and it seems as though a number of generative AI search tools (Gemini included) have decided on their own to attribute authorship to someone named ‘Bob Carter’ but that feels more than a bit fishy to me. That’s why I describe it as a phrase- it’s very unclear that it is an actual quote. That doesn’t mean it isn’t accurate, though!
Being honest about when action is needed is something email authors should take into consideration. While it might feel like email writing takes endless time- just look at the length of this checklist- most of these steps can become more or less automated when writers become experienced. Most competent email writers know that dashing off an email message doesn’t take long- delaying writing a quick email will not positively influence a recipient especially if the sender’s delay in writing affects the time needed to complete a task.
Timeline awareness is also important because good communicators give their recipients a better idea of how to plan out their daily activities without a need for follow-up. As an example, if I’m asked to write a letter of recommendation, I need to know when the letter needs to be submitted so I can plan out when I can draft and review the letter. Not including this information in the original email forces the recipient to follow up, which increases workload on their end.
3. What specific actions and effort would the recipient need to do to fulfill your intended outcome?
A common mistake novice email writers make is making an ask but essentially not understanding all of the steps required to actually fulfill that request. That mismatch can drastically affect the recipient’s opinion of the sender and would likely result in rejecting the intended outcome.
In academic email writing, a common example of this is a student’s request for a changed due date. Not only does this require the professor to respond to the request- writing their own email-based reply- it also likely requires the teacher to manually override the due date on their Learning Management System (LMS) (which needs a computer!), make a note of some kind on the assignment about the changed due date (since remembering the change isn’t practical when working with multiple classes and many students), revise the due dates of any follow-on assignments, and to potentially make manual grading adjustments.
☞ This actually underplays the complexity of changing a due date- my description is based on Google Classroom (which is an LMS where the process can be manually overridden fairly easily), but my experiences with Blackboard have been that other LMS systems are an absolute nightmare to make student-by-student exceptions which affect grading. This example also shows how sometimes, a pen and paper solution might just be more efficient than a digital tool.
In professional contexts, making a request and not understanding the actual burden of fulfilling that request can be even more serious. Such a failure can be viewed as an indication of a lack of awareness or questionable competence- never a good thing in the workplace.
4. Are you choosing to add or carbon copy (CC) additional recipients to your email? If so, why?
Email- no matter the platform or situation- does not deal particularly well with multiple recipient emails. Multiple recipients means an increased risk of many email replies in a single thread, which can create a cascade of replies that tends to confuse more than illustrate.
Where possible, avoid multiple recipients. If it’s necessary to add additional recipients who don’t need to reply- the prototypical ‘sent as an FYI’- make sure those recipients are CC’d on the email instead of sent it directly. CCing an email can clue in recipients that no action is needed on their end.
Having a justification for including email recipients can serve to reduce the number of people on it, which in turn reduces thread complexity, low-utility reply-all messages, and reduces the risk of the thread derailing.
Adding recipients can also be a strategy to prompt a reply, to increase perceived pressure for an intended outcome, make an implicit appeal to a superior, or to alert all recipients to a problem or dispute. While cultural interpretations of adding recipients can vary, it would be difficult to imagine this strategy not being seen as a direct challenge to the primary recipient. Choosing to do this suddenly makes a 1-1 email a public venue, and may be likely to create strong pushback.
5. Do you have strong emotional feelings about the recipient or the topic of your email?
We do not live in a vacuum, and it is both normal and expected that we bring the emotional feelings into our email writing. Expressing those feelings, though, is something heavily influenced by the internal culture of most organizations.
That internal culture largely determines how accepted and allowable un-hedged emotion in email writing is. Unlike a phone call, or a quick 1-1 chat message, email is both permanent (it stays in everyone’s inbox), it is easily forwardable to others outside of the original thread, and email often takes on a ‘voice of the organization’ aspect that reflects the professional roles and exhibited values of that same organization. All of this often makes emotion in emails difficult to manage.
Emotional content- often negative feelings like frustration, anger, annoyance, etc.- is usually hard to express in a way that signals the sender’s thoughts but doesn’t overreach. It is normal to have feelings about the people you interact with, but strongly emotional emails (especially in multiple recipient email threads) can be tricky to implement. Consider your reasons for emailing- do they have more to do with wanting to express an emotion? Would you feel the same way about your email the day after sending it? If the topic or recipient prompts strong feelings (which is fine!), drafting your email, leaving it in your drafts, and re-reading after a few minutes might be a good strategy to avoid sending a regrettable email.
6. On which device and at what time will your recipient first notice your email?
For most people, email is a platform that lives across multiple devices and doesn’t just exist during regular work hours. Instead- as regrettable as this might be for burnout and work-life balance reasons- we essentially carry emails with us everywhere on mobile devices. We might not read or engage with messages 24/7, but recipients will certainly notice your message’s arrival if they’re awake.
One way to think of this is to assume that your recipients will be alerted to your email as soon as you send it- and who likes getting notifications on their phone during a family meal or at 3:00 AM? It’s also worth considering the way most people clear items in their inbox- usually, top to bottom on a desktop computer, which equates starting with the most recent emails and then moving to the older messages. Very careful use of schedule sending emails- something most platforms allow- is a way to have email messages drafted earlier actually arrive at the ‘top of the inbox’.
☞ Be cautious with schedule sending emails- it is a bit risky since significant /shocking national news or late-breaking personnel changes might make your email seem insensitive. For example, imagine schedule-sending an email to arrive on Monday morning after drafting it Friday morning- but your company announces layoffs at the end of the day Friday. Odd timing for schedule-sent emails defeats the purpose as well- some people use this feature to make it appear they have a longer workday than they actually do, but this can backfire by appearing untenable or by creating an expectation of availability outside of normal working hours.
7. How efficient is your email’s subject line in reflecting the intended outcome of your message?
As discussed above, email is something we carry with us- normally all of the time and right in our pockets via a cell phone. Besides being a fundamental and absolutely critical part of drafting an effective email, subject lines on emails become even more important when viewed on a cell phone.
The way most platforms handle email notifications on a mobile device is by showing the subject line as the main element of the notification. An incomprehensible (or worse, blank) subject line prompts the recipient to have to read the email to figure out what’s going on. Prompting a recipient to have to engage with an email to figure out the basics of what’s being requested tends to be annoying to recipients, especially where the email doesn’t involve a time-sensitive task. Where an email is truly time sensitive, it can be helpful indicating that directly in the subject line.
Short, efficient, and readable subject lines that capture the core essence of an email’s intended outcome by the sender are markedly more effective. Think of a good subject line as a ~4-8 word summary of the message’s core points. It’s never possible to capture every important aspect of a message in that range, so effective email writers know to be ruthlessly efficient in choosing only the most germane and relevant details to include in their subject lines.
8. What are the power dynamics between you and the recipient?
Every human relationship, across every culture, involves differences in agency, social expectations, and role. Professional and academic email writers are no exception to this- effective email writers need to have a keen feel for how the power dynamics between individuals functions and how those relationships are best navigated. Sometimes these roles can be codified explicitly- she’s my manager, he’s one of my direct reports, they are students in my class, etc. However, most of the time, these power dynamics are not explicitly codified. Power dynamics are left unsaid, but navigating them is always a key part of the success of any effective email. This can be even more challenging among ‘peers’ – think of how difficult it can be to prompt action by classmates or colleagues working on a group project.
Probably the most common mistake novice email writers make is over- or underplaying message features related to navigating power dynamics. Examples of these structures include the form of greeting (steve vs. Dr. Tabor), sign-offs (none vs. Thanks so much! Stephanie in CM-104-03), and the degree of hedging related to the ask (either not making a direct request, or demanding it or assuming it will be granted). This area can be frustrating for email writers new to the culture or context they’re working in- observing how others handle power dynamics, and honestly assessing your own success or failure can be a useful tool when planning how to approach an email.
☞ This is probably one of the most complicated and challenging areas for email writers- it almost demands a separate chapter all on its own!
9. What are the relevant internal cultural values regarding emailing held by the recipient?
One of the elements that shapes the power dynamics described above is the cultural values of sender and recipient. Think of a series of concentric circles, growing smaller and more specific. Now, imagine larger forces (overall cultural values, dialect, ethnicity, region, hometown) narrowing to smaller circles of cultural values (organizational values, management style, individual differences)- that is how we can think of email culture.
There are almost endless variations of culture, because there is an almost endless variety of people and backgrounds in the world! Cultural values in organizations tend to be broken into stated values (perhaps via a manager’s direction, rules in a handbook, onboarding training, etc.) and cultural forces that are just as present but are unacknowledged (DMs on chat messages being seen as annoying, that requests for support need to loop in the IT manager, that students who email professors should list their course enrollment since teachers work with so many students, etc.). Good examples of the power of internal culture related to email writing can often be found in multiple-recipient messages, where cultural values are oftentimes more challenging and the stakes a bit higher.
Perhaps complaining about a colleague should be done via an off-the-record phone call- or, perhaps, culturally a written record of that complaint needs to be emailed so action is taken. Perhaps a colleague who emails at unusual times of the day will be seen as annoying because everyone else has already closed their laptops and left the office. Other internal cultures might find that same message timing to be a positive indication of commitment. There are endless variations- which is one reason why generative AI tools often fail so spectacularly with email writing because they cannot, and never will, grasp internal cultural values surrounding email writing.
10. Are there text errors (spelling, grammar, word choice, etc.) which makes your email difficult to understand?
Email writing is an imperfect art- most of us send emails on the go or under time constraints- so errors will happen. However, textual mistakes that make the recipient have to struggle to understand the message greatly increases the workload of the receiver, either by forcing a need to reply (‘I’m not sure what you mean…’) or by making the recipient struggle to figure out what the sender is saying.
Errors will occur- anyone who is responding to email messages on the timeframe they should will make mistakes- but errors which are repeated, are especially severe, or which appear to be driven by lack of engagement can reflect poorly on the sender. If recipients ask ‘Did the sender even read this before sending this?!?’, their impression of a sender is likely to be strongly negative.
11. How much work does the recipient need to do to read and understand your message?
Simply put, an email that is unintelligible or requires effort to understand will not be received well. Forcing a respondent to do mental work- either by replying for clarification, trying to untangle the original message, or throwing their head in their hands first thing on Monday morning- often greatly shifts the recipient’s impression of the sender. Annoyance and frustration are rarely positive traits email senders want to be associated with.
This is also just as true with long emails, or emails with too many recipients where the email thread has multiple replies. Email works best in short chunks which use aggressive paragraph spacing to separate ideas.
Having to read pages upon pages of an email probably indicates that the sender should have been more discerning about which items to touch upon in their message. Multiple recipient email threads display differently on different platforms and can become so extended as to be almost unreadable. This problem is magnified when thread recipients start replying individually to each other instead of the group.
☞ This is, regrettably for anyone who regularly uses email in their professional lives, all too common. Incoherent, overly complex, sprawling email threads usually have bad outcomes for senders and give recipients a poor impression of the sender.
12. Have email addresses, titles, and names been handled appropriately?
Although mistakes can and will happen, in most cases email writers (with minimal effort!) have access to previous email threads, internal contact lists, course materials, or a simple internet search to find their recipient’s correct information. This can also be a strongly culturally influenced value- there is value in observing how other email writers in your organization handle these items and mirroring the successful habits of others.
Sometimes these items can change as a conversation unfolds- paying attention to how a reply is structured can give clues to changes in relationship or familiarity. For example, emails to a new contact often use a person’s formal title (Dr., Vice President, etc.) – the recipient’s reply might change that pattern by using the sender’s first name to signal a change in social relationship.
