John Mercer Writing Skills   Home Guidelines Services Clients  Background e-mail

The Ten Commandments of e-mail I. Thou shall not call urgent what thou know'st not to be urgent. II. Thou shall commit thyself to composition process of two steps, the first to discover thy idea in all  its depth and felicity, the second to reorganize for thy reader.  III. Thou shall put thy main idea of importance to thy reader in thy very first sentence, yea even into the subject line. IV. Thou shall write a meaningful subject line, even so precise as to inform the reader of the whole topic without the reader having to read the rest. V. Thou shall use no third-person pronouns in thy first sentence: not he nor she nor it nor they nor this nor that, nay not even the least of these. VI. Thou shall, when thou respondeth, include only so much of the previous message as will make thy reader mindful of the context; thus, thou shalt not be sending lengthy tails that wag thy e-mail mightily. VII. Thou shall not press Send when thy heart is full--yeah, even full to bursting--with righteousness. VIII. Thou shall not forward a message without adding thy commentary so that thy readers know thy sense of purpose in so forwarding. IX. Thou shall use some abbreviation like FYI in thy subject line if thou dost not expect thy reader to treat thy missive with urgency. X. Thou shall pursue a habit of completion and, thus, shall leave no short cuts, which savest thy time but not thy reader's.