Skills for the Workplace-II

UNIT 16 WRITING BUSINESS E-MAILS

Structure
16.0 Objectives
16.1 Warm Up
16.2 Reading
16.3 Listening Comprehension
16.4 Writing Business Email: Dos and Don’ts
16.5 Common Trends in E-Communication
16.6 Email Acronyms and Abbreviations
16.7 Writing
16.8 Language Focus
16.9 Let Us Sum Up
16.10 Answers

16.0 OBJECTIVES
In this Unit you will learn about:
• different kinds of web tools used
today
• different types of e-
correspondence and their
advantages
• basics of email: login- logout-
compose etc
• writing business emails -how to
write simple, direct and relevant
mails
• common trends in e-communication
• email vocabulary

16.1 WARM UP
Take a look at this quote. What does it say about today’s communication?

“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of
tomorrow.”
Bill Gates

Town square is a place in the middle of a town or village where people can come
and meet just to talk or discuss. Do various social media sites like Facebook or
Instagram act in the same way as a town square? How?
Do you use Internet? Make a list of at least 6 ways in which you use Internet to
50 communicate.
 Writing Business E_Mails
16.2 READING
16.2.1 Correspondence
Correspondence or communication with others has changed drastically over the
last few years because of the spread of Internet facility. In India around 481
million people or 35% of the total population were using Internet by December
2017. This was an increase of 11.34% in the number compared to December
2016. Correspondence through email is one of the many ways to communicate
on Internet. In this Block you will look at – commonly used email service
providers, and other forms of communication made possible because of Internet.

16.2.2 Types of correspondence

The nature of correspondence is directly related to the
sender’s intention. When one converses with friends and
relations, the correspondence is informal or personal. On
the other hand, when one talks for the purpose of official
work or business, the correspondence is formal and
professional.

Communication using electronic mediums is known as

E-Communication/ Electronic Communication/ E-
Correspondence. In this unit we will be looking at e-correspondence for
professional purposes. Correspondence is very important for business /
professional purpose. Hundreds of messages flow in and out of an organization
on a daily basis. Some of the common types of correspondence in professional
world are – Internal, External, Routine, Sales, Personalized and Circulars. Each
of these can be communicated through different mediums.
Electronic: email, sms, fax, voicemail, web-conferencing etc.

16.2.3 E-correspondence
Check Your Progress 1
Here is a text on e-correspondence that has some important words missing. Can
you think of them and insert them? If you need help you may look at the box at
the end of the text. After you have filled in the gaps, check your answers with the
Key. Then read through the completed passage again.

Electronic correspondence (e-correspondence) involves usage of communication

............................................ to perform the task of communication. The digital
world has its own ........................................ and as a user of this communication
tool, it is important to become familiar with this language and its abbreviations.
For example, every second, millions of messages are .......................................
from one place to another through communication /telephone networks formed
by satellite links. This network is called ..................................... It connects one
computer with several others .................................... The Internet users are
connected with each other through ............................................................. (www)
where the websites around the globe are interlinked with each other. This means
that the information stored on one address or site can be accessed by a thousand
others across the network .............................. with the web. In order to
............................... or ‘browse’ things available on the sites, one needs to have a
web browser or internet explorer software. 51
Skills for the Workplace-II

Internet language technology view World Wide Web

transmitted linked worldwide

Have you heard of these acronyms / abbreviations/ short forms? If so write

down the full form next to them. Now read the text to find out what exactly
they mean?
LAN
WAN
SMS
Email
The Internet networking used for limited area, say within a building, is called
Local Area Network (LAN). However, if the messages are to be routed outside
the workstations, the networking to be used is Wide Area Network (WAN).

The latest devices of communication technology that have brought significant

changes in the way messages are written, sent, received, stored and disseminated
are email, web conferencing, voicemail, telex, fax, short message service (SMS),
electronic mail, and more recent additions are social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc.
Check Your Progress 2
There are some more important abbreviations, which are commonly used
when using Internet for correspondence. Match the abbreviation with the
full-form given below.
S.No. Abbreviation Full Form
1) Com Portable Document Format: a type of a
computer file that contains words etc, and
can be sent on the Internet. It can then be
opened on any computer
2) Jpg educational institute- often used in email
or website addresses of educational
institutions
3) b-to-b Consumer-to-Business: any activity in
which a customer uses Internet to deal with
a company
4) edu Business to business and is used to describe
any business activity wherein the
companies use Internet to deal/trade with
each other
5) pdf last part of the name of a file that contains
a photograph
6) C2B Commercial organization and is found as
part of website or email addresses of
52 companies
Check Your Progress 3 Writing Business E_Mails

In column 1, some advantages of e-correspondence are given. Match column

I with the correct explanation or information given in Colum II.
S.No. Column 1: Advantages of Column II: Explanation
e-correspondence or information
1) Ease in drafting and editing new devices of storing data have
led to enormous space saving
2) Reduced incidence of error information can be passed on at
a rapid speed saving valuable
time
3) Instant transfer handling and using information
has become affordable
4) Large storage space the entire process of exchanging
messages has become very
creative
5) Cost-effective the chances of error are
minimized due to automation
and the output is accurate
6) Interesting Ready-made templates and
formats are available, composing
and editing has become easy and
effortless

16.3 LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Listen to the audio on electronic mails carefully and then attempt the activity
given below. You may listen to the audio more than once.
Check Your Progress 4
Based on your listening of the tape, fill the blanks with the correct word in
order to learn about important features of email.
1) Emails are quite ................ from other forms of messages such as letters.
2) Letters delivered by the postman are also called .........................
3) Emails can be accessed from any location such as ......................... and
........................
4) Yahoo and Rediffmail are ..................................
5) The sign @ stands for ..............................................
6) Incomplete emails or emails that are typed much before sending them are
automatically saved in the ‘..........................’ folder.
7) ........................... or ................ refers to those messages that are unwanted
or advertise things.
8) Messages that the user wants to delete go to the ‘......................’ folder.
9) While a message is being sent it goes into ...............................
53
Skills for the Workplace-II 10) If a user wants to send a copy of an email to someone other than the main
receiver, the email address can be typed in ‘.................,’ which means
Carbon copy.
11) If a message has to be sent to multiple number of people and the user
wants to hide the identity of others to whom the message has been sent;
then those specific addresses are typed in ‘.................’ or ...........................

Step-by-step procedure to send an E-mail message

1) Log in- connect with the service provider or network using user name and
password.

2) Compose mail: click new message or compose mail option

3) Add recipient: add the email address of the recipient in the header TO. If
there is more than one receiver, you can add them in CC and BCC options.

Compose Mail Box

4) Add Subject: add the subject of the mail

5) Attach files: attach the important files, if any, to be sent along with the
message. These can range from image, text, audio to video files.

6) Draft message: write the message in the blank space provided for the same.
Content can be of any length and can be personalized with the help of
options given, usually above the space.

7) Send: once the mail is drafted, it can be sent to the receiver by clicking on
the send option or can be saved in draft folder to be sent later.

54 8) Sign out: once the mail is sent, you can close your mailbox by signing out.
Remember: In the ‘Drafts folder’, incomplete or future messages can be stored. Writing Business E_Mails
‘Sent messages’ folder contains the history of mails sent by you. ‘Trash’ is the
folder where all the useless or deleted mails are stored. ‘Address book’ is meant
for recording and maintaining the contacts and their email addresses. If the user
wants to reply to a message, then clicking on ‘Reply’ can do it. If the user wants
to respond to all the people who have been Cced or Carbon copied to, the ‘Reply
All’ is used.

Step-by-step procedure to read an email message

1) Log in: connect with the service provider or network using user name and
password and reach your home page.

2) Go to Inbox: on reaching your home page, click on the inbox folder where
all the received mails are stored.

3) View mail: inside the Inbox, you can find all the mails received along with
names of the sender, subject of the mail and the date.

4) Open mail: click on chosen mail to open and read it.

5) Reply or forward: you can reply to any mail by choosing the reply option
given on top. That mail can also be forwarded further to one or many
interested people.

55
Skills for the Workplace-II 6) Delete mail: unwanted mails can be deleted by selecting them through the
checkbox given before them and clicking delete option.

7) Sign out: once the mail is sent, you can close your mailbox by signing out.

Check Your Progress 5

Imagine that one of your friends has recently opened an email account but is still
not sure about writing an email. Based on the steps provided above, explain the
process to him/her.
..............................................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................................

16.4 WRITING BUSINESS EMAILS: DOS AND

DON’TS
In today’s
time, email
has become
one of the In 1960s, Email was called computer-based-messaging-
m o s t system (CBMS). It was in 1974 that the trademark of
important ‘Electronic Mail’ was first registered.
ways of
communicating in the world of business. It is one of the most convenient ways
of relaying information, keeping track, following-up and transferring huge amount
of data in an economical way. With business organizations, government institutes
and education sector becoming more and more hi-tech, emails are increasingly
used to transfer data, memos, tutorials and other useful information to all the
stakeholders.

While one can write an email in an informal way to family and friends, this is
not a good practice in business communication. In business communication, we
56
refrain from using some of the informal ways of writing like adding emoticon (a Writing Business E_Mails
list of popular emoticon is given later in the unit), short forms or sms language
like ‘brb, lol, b4’ etc.

Though email messages permit flexibility and informality, it has been generally
recognized that a minimum level of standard should be followed while drafting
emails. Email writing should follow the approach similar to other forms of
correspondence where effectiveness is given primary importance. Like other
modes, email should be attention grabbing and persuasive. Therefore, you should-

1) Watch your tone

2) Avoid being too casual
3) Be concise and brief
4) Be polite

There are some protocols that are observed in business communication. Let’s
take a look at them below.

Important Tips

1) Start with a salutation

Begin your email by addressing the person to whom you are writing. For example,
messages should begin with
• For addressing someone you do not know well or a superior
Dear Sir/Madam, Dear Mr Mehta, or Dear Professor Smith,
• It is wrong to write Mr/Ms/Dr before the first name only. These are
written either before a full name or the last/family name
• For addressing someone with whom you have a working relationship
Dear Jai, or Dear Heena, that is name followed by a comma.
• For addressing someone you know well
Hi Arun, Hello Arun or just the name followed by a comma Arun,
2) Write in short paragraphs
• K.I.S.S. – Keep it short and simple is a good rule to remember
• Get straight to the point and use short sentences
• Divide your email into two to four short paragraphs, each one dealing with
a single idea
• Bullet-points can be used for extra clarity, especially if you are listing several
questions for the recipient to answer/suggesting a number of alternative
options/explaining the steps that you will be carrying out
• Put a double line break, rather than an indent (tab), between paragraphs
• Use correct punctuation and avoid repetition
57
Skills for the Workplace-II 3) Stick to one topic
If you need to write to someone about several different issues, write separate
mails for each of them. For example, if you are giving your boss an update on
Project X, asking him for a review meeting to discuss a pay raise, and telling him
that you have a doctor’s appointment on Friday, then do not put them all in the
same email. It is hard for people to keep track of different email threads and
conversations if topics are jumbled up.

Make sure that in the ‘Subject’ space, the topic is clearly mentioned. For
example: “Request for Meeting on ….” Or “Follow-up on the Decision taken
on …..” etc.

4) Use capitals appropriately

Emails should preferably follow the same rules of punctuation as other written
correspondence. Capitals are often misused. In particular, you should:
• Never write a whole sentence of an email in capitals
• Always capitalize “I” and the first letter of proper noun
• Capitalize acronyms (USA, BBC, UNESCO)
• Always start sentences with a capital letter
5) Sign off the email
While writing an email, it is essential to close it appropriately.

• For very formal emails such as job application, use Yours sincerely and
Yours faithfully.

• Use Best regards or Kind regards, in semi formal and most other situations.

• When writing to people you know well, it is polite to sign off with something
such as “All the best,” “Take care,” or “Have a nice day,” before typing
your name.

• “Thanking you” is wrong use of English language. If needed, simply type

“Thank You.”

• Do include your name, email address, telephone number and postal address,
where appropriate. It makes it easy for your correspondents to find your
contact details.

• The postal address should be that of the company.

• Include the web link of your company.

6) Use correct grammar

Always check the grammar, spellings, punctuation and language before sending
the email.
Check Your Progress 6
Compare the following two job applications. The content of the emails are
58 identical – but whom would you give the job to?
 Writing Business E_Mails
i’ve attached my resume i would be grateful if you could read it and get back
to me at your earliest convenience. i have all the experience you are looking
for – i’ve worked in a customer-facing environment for three years, i am
competent with ms office and i enjoy working as part of a team. thanks for
your time

Or

Dear Sir/Madam,
I’ve attached my resume. I would be grateful if you could read it and get
back to me at your earliest convenience. I have all the experience you are
looking for:
• I’ve worked in a customer-facing environment for three years
• I am competent with MS office
• I enjoy working as part of a team
Thank you for your time.
Yours faithfully,
Kiran Gujral

16.5 COMMON TRENDS IN E-COMMUNICATION

There are more than one ways to exchange information in business. Email is
simply one of them. One of the fastest growing mediums of communicating is
through a well-known application- Whatsapp. Most of us are used to sending
Whatsapp for personal use. However, when using Whatsapp for professional
use, there are some good practices that must be followed.
1) Always use professional language on Whatsapp.
2) Avoid using unnecessary short forms like ‘b4’ or ‘2moro’. It does not take
long to type ‘before’ or ‘tomorrow’.
3) You may use short forms like ‘asap’ or ‘pfa’ as these are acceptable in the
business world.
4) Do not send unprofessional messages like ‘good morning’ or jokes or
messages unrelated to business either to individuals or in business group.
5) If possible avoid sending messages after working hours. Respect other
people’s time as well as yours.
6) Instead of sending one long message on Whatsapp, number them and keep
to the point.
7) If sending a message in a group, when possible mention the name of the
person for whom the message is important.
8) Be respectful in your language.
9) Ensure that your name is clearly visible as a sender rather than have
nicknames.
10) Avoid exchanging personal messages.

59
Skills for the Workplace-II
16.6 EMAIL ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
It is fun and exciting to communicate using various social media. There are so
many platforms to choose from. Snapchat, Instagram, Blogs, Facebook etc are
just a few popular ones. These can also be used for advertising business as well
as personal communication. On these platforms acronyms and emoticons can be
used but excessive use of these is not appropriate.

Let’s look at some common acronyms and emoticons below:

ASAP As Soon As Possible LOL Laughing out loud
BTW By the way ROFL Rolling on the Floor
Laughing
BRB Be right back TIC Tongue in cheek
IOW In other words SYS See you soon
TC Take care IAE In any event
TTYL Talk to you later <g> Grinning
PLZ Please ASL Age, sex, location
NP No problem THX Thanks
Emoticons
:- ) Smiling :- 1 Indifferent
:- ( Sad ;- ) Winking
;- ( Crying ;- D Laughing
:- \ Undecided :- o Surprised
:- @ Screaming 8- ) Wearing sunglasses
:-& Tongue tied :- P Tongue hanging out

16.7 WRITING
Check Your Progress 7
I) Fill in the gaps to complete this e mail written by Punit Luthra to a
colleague working in their Hyderabad office.
......................... Ahmed
Could you ............................... the press cuttings of all articles published about
our company in your local newspapers in the last six months? I
.............................. for our annual report.
...................................................... in by the last week of this month.
.................................... .
Punit Luthra
Radiant International
14 Patel Road
New Delhi-110007
60
Think of a suitable subject line for the above email. Writing Business E_Mails

Remember:

Subject lines of emails appear in the inbox and must indicate clearly,
specifically but briefly what the mail is about. Based on that the receiver
will decide whether to open the mail immediately or put it off to a later
time.

Check your answer with the Key.

II) Imagine that you are Ahmed. Write an e mail to Punit in response to his
request for information. Don’t forget to write a suitable subject line for the
email.

III) You are Kashish Kaur. You have an important visitor coming to your
company on Tuesday 6th August. You would like your assistant Amit to
take care of him. Write an email to your assistant asking him/her to:
• receive the visitor at the airport – mention date and time
• take him to the hotel and then bring him to your office
IV) Your company is organizing a conference on New Age IT Solutions. Write
an email to an expert inviting him /her to be one of the speakers.

When you have completed the tasks mentioned above, you must note the
degree of formality/informality used. This is an extremely important part of
business communication.

In the first set of 2 mails, Punit and Ahmed are colleagues of similar rank
and do not need to be formal in their mails.

In the next email, Kashish Kaur is the boss, writing to her Assistant Amit.

In the last mail you are writing to an expert, presumably a senior person
outside your company and you need to be very formal.

16.8 LANGUAGE FOCUS

Check Your Progress 8
I) Here are some language structures commonly used in email writing.
Unfortunately the sentences have got jumbled. Sort them out by putting
the words in the right order.
1) order would I place like to an for
2) I writing to you am know let
3) you phone for your call this morning thank
4) are in some of by the we computer softwares web interested advertised
you on the. 61
Skills for the Workplace-II 5) you week send could us the information by the end please of the?
6) are for the we inconvenience sorry caused.
7) would if tomorrow you could I confirm my bookings appreciate by.
8) forward looking visit to your
9) reply I look to your forward.
10) know please let the goods by when can us you send us.
II) Find and correct the mistake in each sentence
1) Please reply this message to confirm that it has been received.
2) I don’t like receiving trash messages.
3) They haven’t received of your emails.
4) I’ve thrown my email by mistake.
5) I will email you the files. I know your email name.

16.9 LET US SUM UP

In this unit you learnt about the different kinds of web tools used in the current
times for communication. In particular, you learnt about different types of e-
correspondence and their advantages. The unit also detailed the steps for opening
an email account along with steps for drafting and reading emails. You also
learnt about the rules for writing direct and effective business emails.

16.10 ANSWER
Check Your Progress 1
Electronic correspondence (e-correspondence) involves usage of communication
technology to perform the task of communication.

The digital world has its own language and as a user of this communication
tool, it is important to become familiar with this language and its abbreviations.
For example, every second, millions of messages are transmitted from one place
to another through communication /telephone network formed by satellite links.
This network is called the Internet. It connects one computer with several others
worldwide. The Internet users are connected with each other through the World
Wide Web (www) where the websites around the globe are interlinked with
each other. This means that the information stored on one address or site can be
accessed by a thousand others across the network linked with the web. In order
to view or ‘browse’ things available on the sites, one needs to have a web browser
or internet explorer software.
Check Your Progress 2
S.No. Abbreviation Full Form

1) com Commercial organization and is found as part

of website or email addresses of companies

2) Jpg last part of the name of a file that contains a

photograph
62
 3) b-to-b Business to business and is used to describe any Writing Business E_Mails
business activity wherein the companies use
Internet to deal/trade with each other

4) edu educational institute- often used in email or

website addresses of educational institutions

5) pdf Portable Document Format: a type of a computer

file that contains words etc, and can be sent on
the Internet. It can then be opened on any
computer

6) C2B Consumer-to-Business: any activity in which a

customer uses Internet to deal with a company
Check Your Progress 3
S.No. Column 1: Advantages Column II: Explanation or
of e-correspondence reasons

1) Ease in drafting and editing Readymade templates and formats

available, composing and editing
has become easy and effortless

2) Reduced incidence of error the chances of error are minimized

due to automation and the output
is accurate

3) Instant transfer information can be passed on at

rapid speed saving valuable time

4) Large storage space new devices of storing data have

led to enormous space saving

5) Cost-effective handling and using information has

become affordable

6) Interesting the entire process of exchanging

messages has become very creative

Audio text on Electronic Mails for 16.3

Electronic mail is very different from letters and other forms of messages that
were sent through the means of a postman. The technology of the two is very
different. Messages sent through a postman are now known as ‘snail mail’. Can
you think of a reason why it is known as ‘snail mail’?

Electronic mail or email is a method of exchanging digital messages from a

sender to one or more recipients. Email system operates through the Internet
network. One needs to open an email account with any of the service providers
such as Google, Rediffmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. Those who operate these
accounts are called users. Users can access their accounts from any location–
home, office, cyber-café, market etc. Once the account is opened, the users get a
mailbox address containing their chosen identification code along with the name
of the service provider or organization.
63
Skills for the Workplace-II For example, [email protected] or [email protected]
Here ‘xyz’ and ‘abc’ are the user chosen codes. Yahoo.com and gmail.com are
the service providers. Both the names are separated by ‘at the rate of’ sign (@),
which indicates that the user is ‘located at’ the particular mailbox of that particular
service provider.

The user can access the account anytime by ‘logging in’ to their email account,
which is protected by password. The user also generates this password herself or
himself. These passwords serve as the key to unlock the mailbox. Some of the
common passwords are – 123456789, qwerty123, user’s date of birth or
anniversary etc. However, these are also known as weak passwords as other
people can ‘hack’ an account easily.

Each email system uses a fixed structure, generally with basic options of ‘Inbox’,
‘Compose’, ‘Drafts’, ‘Sent Mail’, ‘Bin’ and ‘address book’. Modern systems
offer many additional user-friendly features along with these basic ones.

‘Inbox’ is used to store all the received messages. Clicking on the ‘Compose’
key opens a small window in which the email is typed out. There are some basic
details that have to be filled while sending an email. These details are usually
common to all the email service providers. These are ‘To,’ ‘Cc,’ ‘Bcc,’ ‘Subject,’
and ‘Compose email’. Nowadays all service providers have additional functions
that users can use while composing an email – attach (files, audio, videos, image),
font (size, style, colour), etc.
Check Your Progress 4
1) different
2) snail mails
3) home and office
4) internet service providers
5) at the rate of
6) draft
7) junk mail or spam
8) trash
9) outbox
10) CC
11) Bcc or blind carbon copy
Check Your Progress 6
Based on the email written, the job would most likely be offered to the second
candidate because
Explanation:
• The second email has a clear structure
• It uses punctuation marks appropriately
• It has appropriate beginning and sign off
64 • It uses bullet points to emphasize skills description
Check Your Progress 7 Writing Business E_Mails

I) A suitable subject line for the above email could be: Request for Press
Cuttings of Last Six Months

I)

Dear Ahmed

Could you please send me the press cuttings of all articles published about
our company in your local newspapers in the last six months? I need them
for our annual report.
Please send them in by the last week of this month.
Regards
Punit Luthra
Radiant International
14 Patel Road
New Delhi

II)
Subject: Press Cuttings to reach you by 28 September
Dear Punit
Received your email asking for local press cuttings. I will ensure that they
reach you by 28 of September. Would it be OK if I couriered them to you?
Regards
Ahmed

III)

Subject: Mr Ramgopal’s visit on 6 August

Dear Amit,
Mr Ramgopal is visiting our company on 6 August. Can you please receive
him at the airport on 6th morning at 8 am? He is taking the Jet Airways flight
from Chennai. Please take him to the Park Plaza at Nehru Place where he is
booked and then bring him over to my office by 10 am.
Thanks
Kashish Kaur

65
Skills for the Workplace-II IV)

Subject: Invitation as Guest Speaker for New Age I T Solutions

from 12-14 September

Dear Mr Banerjee,

I am pleased to let you know that our company is organizing a conference on

New Age I T Solutions from 12 to 14 September 20...

We would like to invite you as one of the guest speakers for a session of 2
hrs which will include interaction with participants.

Please let us know if 13 August 11 am would suit you. We will be thankful

if you accept our invitation.
We look forward to your confirmation.
Kind Regards
Amita Sood
Network Solutions
124/67 Nehru Place
New Delhi

Check Your Progress 8

I) 1) I would like to place an order for…
2) I am writing to let you know…
3) Thank you for your phone call this morning.
4) We are interested in some of the computer softwares advertised by
you on the web.
5) Could you please send us the information by the end of the week?
6) We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
7) I would appreciate if you could confirm my bookings by tomorrow.
8) Looking forward to your visit.
9) I look forward to your reply.
10) Please let us know by when you can send us the goods.
II) 1) Please reply to the message to confirm that it has been received.
2) I don’t like receiving junk messages.
3) They haven’t received any of your emails.
4) I’ve deleted my email by mistake.
5) I will email you the files. I know your email address.

66
Notes
Notes