How to Write an Email: Everything You Need to Know

What is an email?

Email communication is common in both formal and informal relationships, the latter being somewhat more relaxed.

Email messages are an essential part of professional communication in most organizations. They allow employees to communicate with one another within the organization and with external partners.

In practice, email also serves a documentation function today—it often provides confirmation of arrangements, decisions or information that has been shared.

It is therefore worth knowing the basic rules of writing and language etiquette. They make it much easier to manage both professional and personal correspondence correctly.

Writing an email—where should you start?

The key issue is therefore the relationship between the sender and the recipient. If you assess it correctly, you will avoid an embarrassing faux pas from the outset.

How to write an email: the essential elements

The key is knowing how to use the right message structure.

A well-organized layout makes it easier for the recipient to understand the content quickly and find the most important information. An inappropriate structure can make a message unclear or ambiguous.

What elements should you remember when writing an email?

Subject line

The subject line should contain the key issue you are addressing in the message. If you have several matters to discuss with the recipient, it is worth separating them into individual threads and describing each one appropriately.

This will keep the information better organized and, as a result, easier to find. Creating a separate thread for each issue also reduces the risk of an important message being overlooked among a flood of other information.

Example subject line: Application for the Copywriter Position

Greeting

Once you have chosen the subject line, you can move on to the greeting. Its form depends on your relationship with the recipient and the nature of the correspondence.

If you do not know who will read your message, the best solution is to use a formal general greeting, such as Dear Sir or Madam. If you know the recipient’s role, rank, title or position, you can use a more specific form, such as Dear Professor Smith.

In informal correspondence, you can simply use a first-name greeting, such as “Good morning, Emily.”

The rule about using a greeting applies to the first message exchanged with a recipient as part of an ongoing conversation. It is not necessary to repeat it in subsequent messages.

Main content

After using the greeting, you can move on to the main content of the message. If you are not sure how to write an email, try to ensure that your message is concise, easy for the recipient to understand and directly related to the matter you are addressing. This will help you avoid misunderstandings.

It is good practice to read through your draft again. This will help you check whether the message conveys the intended meaning and whether any important information has been left out. At this stage, you can also catch any potential errors.

Closing

Before you finish the email with your signature, use an appropriate closing formula.

As with the greeting, when choosing a polite closing pay particular attention to your relationship with the recipient.

Depending on which expression is most appropriate for the correspondence, you can use phrases such as Yours sincerely, Kind regards or the slightly less formal Best regards. Remember, however, that you do not put a comma between the closing phrase and your signature.

Writing an email: correct formatting

The way an email is written reflects your professionalism and respect for the recipient. Below are the most important rules to follow in everyday correspondence:

Punctuation after the greeting

After a greeting such as Good morning or Dear Ms Smith, you generally use a comma and begin the main message on a new line with a lowercase letter:

Dear Ms Smith,
Thank you for sending the offer…

Alternatively, you can use an exclamation mark after the initial greeting, which allows you to begin the next sentence with a capital letter:

Good morning!
Thank you for sending the offer…

Punctuation after the sign-off

Do not use a comma or a full stop after a sign-off such as Yours sincerely or Best regards. Your signature—first and last name—should appear on the next line, even if the recipient knows who sent the message from its context or email address. This is a matter of good etiquette and keeps correspondence clear:

Kind regards
John Smith

Avoiding Hi in formal emails

The greeting Hi is widely used, but it is not always suitable for formal correspondence. In some contexts, it may sound too casual, so in professional and official communication it is better to replace it with more neutral forms:

Good morning
Dear Ms Smith
Dear Sir or Madam

How to write an email: examples

You now know how to write an email, what to pay attention to and which rules to follow. All that remains is to put your new knowledge into practice.