Greetings
and Salutations
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Every new medium develops its own protocols for opening and closing. Telephone
conversations start with "Hello" and end with "Goodbye". Letters open with
"Dear" and end with "Sincerely". Because email is so new, there aren't firm
customs on how to open and close.
Many people do not give either a salutation or a signature.
After all, while a letter can get separated from its envelope easily, it is
difficult to separate an email message's body from its addressing information.
The email message itself says who it is to and from.
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However, that information might not be adequate for your
needs. It might be difficult to find with some email reading software. It might
be unclear or ambiguous. It might be inadequate for telling the receivers just
why they are getting that message. Or, it might not convey the proper formality
or status cues for your purposes.
We will give you our thoughts on openers and closers, but
you need to think carefully about what you are trying to convey both explicitly
and implicitly. You also need to take the culture and customs of all parties
into consideration.
Salutations
Salutations are tricky, especially if you are crossing cultures. Frequently,
titles are different for men and women, and you may not be able to tell which
you are addressing. The family name is first in some cultures and last in
others. Honorifics may vary based on status or age. So don't feel bad if you
have trouble figuring out which salutation to use: it is a difficult problem.
In the United States, it is a bad idea to use "Sir" or "Mr." unless you are
absolutely certain that your correspondent is male. Similarly, it is probably
safer to use "Ms." instead of "Miss" or "Mrs." unless you know the preference
of the woman in question.
In the United States, using someone's first name is usually ok. Thus,
you can usually get away with a "Dear" and the first name.
Dear Chris:
Here you are covered regardless of whether Chris is male or female. (Beware of
using a diminutive if you aren't certain your correspondent uses it. It might
rankle Judith to be called Judy; Robert might hate being called Bob.)
If you are addressing a group of people, you can say "Dear" plus the unifying
attribute. For example:
Dear Project Managers:
Or:
Dear San Jose Lasers Fans:
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Do You Even Need A Salutation?
Given that email is relatively informal, frequently (in the
United States) there isn't a problem with dispensing with names and titles
altogether, especially if you are in a higher status position than your
correspondent:
Hello - I saw your web site and wanted to mention that
I invented the thromblemeister on Feb 29, 2403, *not*
on Feb 28, 2402.
I usually use a simple "Hi" for people that I already know:
Hi - Are you interested in getting together for
sushi next week? I can bring all my wedding pictures
and bore you to death. ;-)
"Good Morning" and "Good Afternoon" don't make a lot of
sense with email, as the sun may have moved significantly by the time your
correspondent gets around to it. "Good Day" sounds stilted to American ears
(although it is common in other parts of the former British Empire). You may
want to avoid "Greetings" in the United States: it reminds many people of the
draft notices young men got during the Vietnam War.
Again, you must be careful about cultural differences. The
East Coast of the United States is more formal than the West Coast (where I
live). Germans are even more formal; they can work side-by-side for years and
never get around to a first-name basis. Starting a message to Germany with Dear
Hans might be a bad idea.
Identification
When I get email from strangers, I care more about what
connection they have with me than how they address me. When you send email,
particularly someone who doesn't know you, it would be good if you would
immediately answer these questions:
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How did you learn of your correspondent?
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What do you want from your correspondent?
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Who are you?
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Why should your correspondent pay attention to you? (If you can't answer this
question, you should wonder if you should even send the email.)
Putting some of that information in a signature is better
than nowhere at all, but putting it at the top is better for several reasons:
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If there is a problem with the transmission of the email, the end is much more
likely to get lost than the beginning.
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A lot of people get more than twenty messages per day, and so read them
quickly. If you don't establish quickly who you are, your correspondent may
delete your message before they get to the bottom.
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Your identity is an important clue to the context of the message.
Good answers to the questions can take several forms:
Dear Ms. Sherwood: I am an editor at Very Large Publishing
Company, Inc. I sat next to your husband on United last week,
and he mentioned that you are interested in publishing a book
based on your email guide. I have read your guide, and would be
very interested in receiving a proposal from you.
Or:
My name is Dave Wilcox and I'm the legal counsel for
Thromblemeisters Direct, Inc. We are deeply disturbed at
the aspersions you cast upon us and on thromblemeisters in
your email guide. Therefore, we order you to immediately
cease and desist using any reference to thromblemeisters
in your email guide. If you do not, we will be forced to
file suit against you or your descendants if and when we and/or
thromblemeisters come into existence.
Or even:
Hi - I am a novice email user and just read your email guide.
I don't know if you are the right person to ask or not, but do
you know what the French word for "Mister" is? If you can tell
me the answer, I'll send you a funny postcard.
Some good friends of mine recently got email from my cousin
for the first time. Unfortunately, not all of the email made it through. The
message they got said only:
Dear Rich and Chris: I met you at Jim and Ducky's wedding.
But, because he identified where he knew Rich and Chris from
immediately, it was enough information that they knew he was someone to pay
attention to. They replied to him and communication is now going smoothly
between them.
Signatures
Many email programs allow you to set up a default signature
to be included at the end of every message. Many people use these signatures as
an easy way to give their name and alternate ways of reaching them. For
example:
Hi - when did you want to go to lunch?
Rebecca P. Snodwhistle
Thromblemeisters Direct, Inc.
666 Beast Street
Styx, HI 77340
+1 (959) 123-4567 voice
+1 (959) 123-4568 FAX
snodwhistle@throbledirect.com W
becca@thromboqueen.net (personal)
Such an extensive amount of signature information in
contrast to such a short question looks silly to me. I think much of the above
signature is extraneous. If they got the email from you, they can reply by
email, so don't need your FAX number or street address. (If they have to send a
FAX or package, they can ask for addressing information.) They already have one
email address in the message you sent, and don't need your other email address.
The name is perfectly reasonable to include, especially if
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Your email messages don't include your full name in the From:
line. (Send yourself email to see if your name is there or not.)
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The name in the From:
line doesn't match the name you actually use. (Christina might actually go by
Chris, but her company might insist on using her full name as her email name.)
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The email account is shared by multiple people. (My husband and I have a joint
email account, for example.)
The telephone number is also a reasonable thing to include -
if you are willing to be interrupted by a phone call. Emotions are easier to
convey over the phone, and some people prefer phone to email for all
circumstances.
If the message is business related, including the company name is a reasonable
thing to do - even if the message is going to someone else in the same company.
One thing that is missing from Rebecca P. Snodwhistle's signature, above, that
I would like to see is her job title. Is she the vice-president of sales or the
shipping clerk? That may have more of an influence on the correspondent than
anything else.
So I would rewrite the above signature to be:
Rebecca P. Snodwhistle
Chief Executive Officer, Thromblemeisters Direct, Inc.
+1 (959) 123-4567 voice
That signature is still overkill for arranging lunch, but it
isn't always convenient to switch between having your signature included or
not.
Some people put things purely for entertainment in their signature: artwork,
philosophical sayings, jokes, and/or quotations in their signature. This can be
ok, but don't overdo it. A good heuristic is to keep your signature at or under
five lines long.
After setting up a signature that is included automatically, it is easy to
forget about it. (After all, your email software might not show it to you, or
it might be so routine that you never look at it again.) So whenever a piece of
contact information changes, make sure to revisit your signature to make sure
that it is still up-to-date. And, if you have an entertainment piece in your
signature, change it every once in a while. It wasn't as funny the fiftieth
time your coworker saw it as it was the first time.
One final note on signatures: they are a good way to let your correspondent
know that all of the message got transmitted properly. There is no body
language to signal that you are "done talking" and, unfortunately, email
transmissions sometimes get interrupted.
Separators
Many people put pretty separators - lines, horizontal bars, and so on - around
their signatures. For example:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Rebecca P. Snodwhistle | CEO, Thromblemeisters Direct, Inc.
+1 (959) 123-4567 voice | +1 (959) 123-4567 fax
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These are very pretty to sighted people, but imagine what it would be like for
people who are so visually challenged that they have their computer read their
email to them: "hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen..."
That said, some email programs recognize "-- " as a signature separator,
and so can process the signature differently. (For example, some programs don't
include the signature in quotes.)
Technically, the signature is
supposed to be two hyphens plus a space, but it's very
common to see just two hyphens without the space.
sources www.webfoot.com
author - Kaitlin Duck Sherwood