Email Etiquette: Read This Before You Hit 'Send'

Editor's note: If you have a pressing business-etiquette question for Miss Conduct, please send her an email.

Emily Post wrote, "The art of letter-writing is shrinking until the letter threatens to become a telegram, a telephone message, a postcard." Clearly, even back in 1922, email and text-messaging were on the horizon, and nota bene, etiquette writers like Post were among the first to notice.

With the pen being mightier than the sword, email is an effective business tool; many businesspeople spend the better part of their days using it.

Yet too many writers treat the sharp edges of their words with too cavalier an attitude. That's fine as long as relationships are trotting along, but when the pace or heat of the situation increases, sloppy use of email can undercut your bottom line. (Or so Miss Conduct has read -- mostly in forwarded emails.)

Whether it's done with a fountain pen or a keyboard, Emily Post's art of letter writing concerns both form (mechanics) and content (etiquette). These two do intersect, but the nuts and bolts of email usage are often mistaken for etiquette when they're really a matter of form.

Naturally, usage conventions will vary from industry to industry and are easily observed, mimicked and corrected via exemplary replies from your boss' emails.

For instance, some people write out a salutation, others rely on the "to" and "from" fields to address the reader. Follow the trend in your company and in your industry so that you set your readers at ease. It's that easy.