Prof. P.V.

(Sundar) Balakrishnan

Professional Email: Advice, Suggestions & Instructions*

By P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

(With contributions from Nancy Kool and the many UWB faculty)

In contrast to emails and text messages to friends and family, professional business email
should conform to certain standards. Here are some guidelines to help you make the best
possible impression and achieve the results you want:

Revise rather than sending off a first draft.

Chill Not Flame:
• After you have drafted your email, take the time to carefully reread and reconsider
it. In most cases, you will see things to revise and clarify.
• If you must craft an email that criticizes or flames someone, it is best to sleep on it
(compose it and keep it in the Draft folder) for 24 hours before sending it out.
Perhaps the next day you may think better of sending out such a note, or may
wish to edit its tone.
• Proof read and edit, with the tips and standards below in mind.

Be courteous:
Casualness can look like rudeness, especially when the recipient of your email is a
customer, a superior, or a colleague. Observe the same conventions of politeness
throughout the email that you would in a formal business letter

Addressing the Recipient

Begin with a salutation. “Hey Palm” – is not a great idea! “Dear Professor Lo” would
be better.
In general, employ titles in salutations unless the instructor has asked the student, because
of the length of interaction and familiarity, to call her or him by their first name.
• Don’t start the message without addressing the intended party (recipient of your
message). This is particularly true if you are sending it out to multiple addresses
and CCing multiple people with one email.
• If you have been BCCd, do not hit reply to all. Reply only to the person who sent
you the message.
• The exceptions to this are when you are in middle of a long thread of messages
and the major participants to email conversation have been clearly identified
earlier.
• It is better to err on the side of being too formal rather than too casual.
Examples:
o Don’t start by saying, “Yo” or “Hoy” or “hey”.
o Do say, “Dear Prof. YYYY or “Dear Mr. LowlyWorm”.

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Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

Closing an email:
This might include thanking the recipient for his or her help or time; for the
opportunity to comment or give input; or apologizing for any inconvenience your
request or problem may be causing the recipient.
It is a good idea to say, “Regards,” “Best regards,” “sincerely yours,” etc.
Examples:
• Thanks in advance for your time.
• Thank you for any consideration you can give this matter.
• I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this discussion.
• Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this issue/be a part of the discussion.
• I apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your willingness to consider an
extension.

Ending Signature
Do make sure to append a signature line with at least your name.
Don’t make the reader guess as to who sent the email.

International Context:
Especially in the heightened importance of the global context, the use of formal
salutations and polite closing statements are crucial if you are to build and
maintain meaningful business relationships.
Remember that politeness does not cost you anything, to paraphrase Winston
Churchill. It may get you the opening that you need.

Subject line:
Your subject line should also be informative. It will impact whether the recipients
wants to pay any attention to it. You may want to state the main topic, e.g.
“marketing strategy problem,” “software glitch,” “request budget input,” or
“request for extension.”
• Do Specify the Course/Group Identifier/Section clearly in the Subject
Heading. Remember that your client/boss/professor may get hundreds of
emails and be teaching multiple courses and your can get misplaced easily.

GROUP Work Related Email:

• Do CC all members of your Group.
• The exception to this rule is when you are complaining about your group
member.

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Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

Body of the Email:

Announce your purpose in the first sentence.
Clarifying the subject and purpose of your email at the outset is a good
strategic move.
Examples:
• I am writing to inform you of a problem with the marketing report.
• This is to request your input into our current budget revisions.
• I would like to request an extension of the deadline for the marketing plan.
Be organized.
Even though emails tend to be shorter, they should still have a clear outline
and topics.
To be professional, the text of an email should not be disorganized or written
in a stream-of-consciousness manner. Informal emails are a different matter.
Write in paragraphs
One topic per paragraph. In email, short paragraphs are fine.
Be concise.
Crispness is important.
Limit the subject matter.
For best results, send separate emails for different issues and situations.

Attachments:

Name of File:
If there is an attachment, the name of the document should be consistent with the
name of the email subject or at least consistent with the topic so that the reader is not
confused.
The email that you wish to send is about marketing plan. So ensure that the
attachment should suggest that this is about a marketing plan for a specific group in a
particular class. In short, do not send a file that merely says just “name of
group.doc”.
• As you start to send in your PPT/WORD/ file attachments to the Professor, 
please remember that they will probably receive a large number of them.  
• Please think about the RECEIVER (your boss; TA; Instructor; client, etc.) of the file 
when you email documents of any sort. 
• So, if you name your file HW‐1.PPT or MEMO.DOC, this will require the 
Instructor to open the file and rename it with your name or some unique 
identifier. While this makes it easy for you as the sender, it makes it but very 
hard for the receiver/client. 
• As a courtesy to yourself in your digital career, please include in the document 
file name: Your name and Topic.  
 
 

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Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

Examples:
Ex1: T_Garrett‐LAMemo.DOC is good. 
Ex2: Srinivasan&Gada‐VALS‐HW#2.PPT is good.  
This will take you a bit more time but will help avoid confusion. 
 
 
Size of File:
• Do not send overly large files as attachments.
• Note: your clients may be reading their email at home or from their places of
travel where connectivity speeds can be a problem.
• For very large files, you are better off sending a link to the site where the file is
stored, so it can be downloaded at the convenience of the reader.

Email Domain/User Name

This is only for those lucky enough to have been admitted to the University of
Washington.

Email Domain:
An important note in this world of spam and junk mail filters.
• Your email domain connotes a brand image. Do you wish to portray
professionalism and credibility or the opposite?
• The University of Washington is one of the top 20 globally ranked universities.
The UW domain instantly bestows credibility on the email sender. Why would
one forsake such a domain for one that is less prestigious? In short, uw.edu or
uwb.edu is a great domain to use for that all-important e-image.
• With the increasing level of email security being employed by your faculty, many
emails from non-educational domains (or those from major corporate and
governmental employers) end up caught by the junk mail filter. Many faculty
while at work may not allow emails from private email domains (unless it is from
their mother or the three or four other people well known to them).
• If you are sending emails from a non‐UW account, be warned that the UW filters on 
many faculty accounts are pretty strong (and most non‐UW emails may Not get 
through).   
• Use your University of Washington email account for communication with your
faculty. It may also stand you in very good stead when applying for jobs or
communicating with various governmental agencies and NGOs.
• Maintaining your uw.edu or uwb.edu email addresses after you graduate can help
your faculty members can stay in touch with you as and when necessary.

User Name:
Please try and email it from an email account that displays your name clearly. 
Make sure to select a user name wisely. This is particularly true when you are out
in the job market.

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Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

• Email addresses such as alwayssleepy@mail.com; hotstuds@tuktuk.com; etc.

are not a good idea. They do tend to create a bad image from the start.
Faculty on a number of occasions have had job opportunities come up but have no
way to contact their students after they graduate.
• Your Professors are unlikely to send an important opportunity to someone
with an email such as “drunkandwild33@yahmail.net.

May your emails be read. May your emails get forwarded. May you never lose an 
opportunity over a poorly composed email.