Tips 'n Tricks

Proof Your Email

Originally Posted Thursday, 24 April 2014 at 05:34 PM
Updated Sunday, 12 October 2014 at 09:57 AM

I shouldn’t have to tell professionals this, but many people have decided, without justification, that email is like casual conversation. In conversation, you don’t have to worry about capitalization, or punctuation, or paragraphs, or, certainly, spelling.

It’s so easy to dash off an email, it’s so easy to be conversational, that far too many people have decided that email somehow doesn’t need to follow the rules of written communication.

So, we all receive email from colleagues who have forgotten everything they ever knew about readability: No caps, little or no punctuation, run-on sentences, mind-numbingly long paragraphs. And even if they do manage to use capital letters, periods, and commas, they don’t spend the extra 20 seconds it would take to run the damn spell-checker, which now is a ubiquitous one-button click on email clients.

What the hell are these people thinking?

When I get an email from a colleague that’s littered with misspellings or other errors, do you think I’m likely to partner with them on an upcoming project? No, I’m not going to let MY professional credibility hang on their laziness or carelessness or ineptitude.

If they don’t routinely take the time to do things right for a colleague or friend, why would anyone think they’d be able to avoid this habit when it comes to a quick note dashed off to a client? Anyway, your friend may forward that casual email to someone else -– and wouldn’t you be embarrassed if it was your client or your grammar teacher or your lover or something?

The tip: Write and proof email just as you would other written correspondence. Everything you send to others speaks of your qualities as a professional.

About The Author

Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR

Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR, is well-positioned as CornerBarPR's Chief Curmudgeon; he's our version of Andy Rooney -- loves words, particularly loves to complain about idiocy.

In his spare time, Rich runs the inventively named Barger Consulting, where he conducts strategic communications planning and research, and gives people advice whether they want it or not.

Through the years, Rich has tricked unsuspecting folks into giving him positions as managing editor of the public relations division of a 180-person agency, and as a wire service editor, an economic analyst, a federal investigator, and, bless his little muddy boots, a farmer. Really. He fancies himself a pretty fair country editor and at one time was famous among about half a dozen people as "The Voice of IABC."

At various points in what passes for a career, he's done time as a member of IABC, PRSA, and NSPRA, as well as the Gifted Association of Missouri, the University of Missouri Alumni Association, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (as a Senior Arbitrator), and a handful of church choirs.

Known as "Boom-Boom Barger" in Marching Mizzou, Rich refuses to answer the phone during University of Missouri football or basketball games, plays a hard-edged game of bridge, and is married to a woman he doesn't like to talk about much, because she's smarter and much nicer than he is.

Barger's motto: "Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once."