9 Oft-Overlooked E-mail Etiquette Tips Every Young Worker Should Know

Ding! You've got mail. Welcome to the working world, youngsters. Chances are you've been e-mailing since the early years of AOL, but what do you know about work e-mails? If you're wondering where all the smiley faces are at or why your co-workers don't forward funny YouTube videos to each other, then you clearly have a thing or two to learn about e-mail etiquette in the workplace. Keep reading for the 9 oft-overlooked e-mail etiquette tips every young worker should know.

1. Use a courteous greeting and closing

   All business e-mails should begin with a courteous greeting and end with an appropriate closing. Greetings and closings make e-mails seem more personal and less demanding. Remember, if you're going to take the time to write a greeting, make sure you address the right person and you spell their name correctly.

2. Keep it short and sweet

   This one is pretty self-explanatory. Keep your e-mails as concise and clean as possible. Nobody wants to read an essay or have to skim through an e-mail to find the answer. Keep it short and sweet and you'll have no problems.

3. Think before you send

   Remember, there's no shredder for e-mails. Even if you're able to retrieve an incorrectly sent or embarrassing e-mail, forwarded notes may still exist and those may never get deleted. With that being said, you should always take caution before sending a sensitive or emotionally-charged e-mail out to co-workers or anyone else for that matter. Just like you've been told to think before you speak, you should think before you send.

4. Revise

   You wouldn't turn in an important essay without revising it first, right? The same care should be taken when writing any business e-mail. It's easy to make mistakes when writing e-mails, and sometimes these errors are overlooked, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take three minutes to revise what you've written before you send it. Use spell check and other tools to help you get it right the first time, and if that still isn't enough, ask a co-worker to give it a look if they have a couple minutes to spare.

5. Get to the point

   Don't make your reader sort through an essay of an e-mail to find what they're looking for. When writing an important e-mail – get straight to the point. Just like the aforementioned tip to keep e-mails short and sweet, you should address the purpose of the e-mail up front, whether it's to ask a question or give an answer. No one wants to read through an in-depth description of your stomach problems that are preventing you from coming into work; a simple "I'm ill" will do.

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