Like most of you, I cannot remember a professional life (much less a personal one) where I didn’t correspond via email. For the most part, it’s an efficient and simple way of communicating, and, when used correctly, it saves time, answers questions, and makes connections. Suffice it to say, I don’t believe I could live without it.
Unfortunately, with the ease of email and the speediness to which many of us are accustomed to sending, forwarding, or replying comes a few road bumps, if you will. I have little tolerance for careless errors like misspelled words (most programs alert you to these types of typos with a squiggly red line), and saying you’re going to CC someone and then forgetting to actually CC him or her. That’s amateur territory. (Although, my mother is forgiven for occasionally sending me messages in all caps.)
Seriously though, because the forum is often the number one way you have of communicating with a client, boss, or networking person, it’s imperative that you get it right. And not just for the sticklers out there, but for yourself—you’d hate for the recipient to miss the point of the message because he or she’s focused on an (avoidable) error. Today a typo loses you a little bit of respect with a co-worker, tomorrow it could very well lose you a job opportunity with a person you meet at a conference.
Ahead, three incredibly basic mistakes you may be making without realizing how very unprofessional they’re making you look to the reader.
