Reading Response #2
I haven’t really had a whole lot of experience with sending out formal emails. While I do work at a place that uses email frequently to communicate with the home office, I rarely do the emailing myself. I do, however, use email to communicate with members of my sorority. With close to one hundred girls in the house, email is a very important communication tool, as well as, the most effective. I’ve learned that the tone of an email makes the difference on how the reader reacts. For example, if the house manager sends out an email about girls in the house parking in spots other than their own and uses a threatening and angry tone, most girls would not approach the matter in the manor intended by the sender of the email. On the other hand, if the house manager approached the matter rationally and calmly, most girls would be glad to do what they were asked. Basically, people don’t like to be called out on their mistakes. I think number six of the “Ten Habits of Successful Emailers” is where most emails go wrong. Sarcasm, exclamation marks, and capital letters can be very easily misinterpreted.
I think emailing is used more than other forms of messaging for several reasons. The first being that other forms of messaging, such as text messaging or instant messaging, are harder to interpret the tone intended. Both text and instant messages are so informal that the person receiving the messages could very easily interpret them as having a different meaning. Another reason emails are used so much more often in the business world is that they can be much longer. Emails allow you to give a good, formal explanation to avoid misinterpretation. They also allow senders to attach important documents or files rather than having to physically send them to the recipient.
Comments
I concur that the "tone of
I concur that the "tone of an email makes a difference on how the reader reacts". I, myself, am in a sorority and throughout the whole year we had constant misinterpretations of emails. It always seemed to affect one person in the house and they would call it out through a threatening email. I think that this issue of misinterpretation will always exist when issued in mass quantities. Some of the problems can be easily avoided if one does not send an email in an emotional state or hasn't used spellcheck. The best method would be to review your work before sending and construct it in a calm fashion.
Anger Tone Example
Personally, I have been able to pick up tone in emails in several different ways (though I still often make mistakes). I also am in a Greek house and I have been able to see different members’ tones via email. One example is when there are misspellings and mistakes throughout the email. I have noticed this most often when someone is angry or has taken offense to something. Often times there will be sentence fragments, words not capitalized, and excessive capitalization or exclamation marks. This example is probably due to fast typing with not a lot of thought behind it. I agree with what you said about reviewing your work to construct it in a calm fashion. But, more times than not, when someone gets upset they type what is on their minds.
Reply
I like your response and story. Tone in an email is very important. I had not thought to myself that instant and text messaging would be hard to interpret. This makes since though because often times you are crunched for space and have to appreciate and can not have long complete explanations. Text and instant messaging also offer another struggle in that they have their own simplified language. A person will not be able to understand what all of the short hand is without taking time to learn some of the new meanings. I like to think I’ve been using AIM for a long time, however, there are many phrases I still don’t know the meaning of.
Tone
I also agree that tone is important and determines the reception of the email, as your personal experience illustrates well. The other problem with difficult emails is that they usually generate many, many more emails to resolve the problem. This happens especially when large groups of people are reading emails when they are sent in mass quantities to a company or list serve. On one list serve I belong to, one member sent a politically charged email, which resulted in over 50 other emails in response. Some people were offended, some showed support, and some just complained (ironically) about their emails being clogged with useless messages (this is a valid complaint, but sending more emails only increases the problem.) Sending the wrong email once can result in a lot of extra work and emails down the road.
Tone
Because everyone has picked-up on tone, I think the natural question is what is tone and how is it generated in an email? It can be difficult to analyze tone in any communicative act, partially because people have different subjective responses to documents, so there probably isn't a single, objective tone to inspect. Email is of course devoid of many things (such as visual information) that supplement tone in other media. How do we make sure that we create the appropriate tone in an email? What are the nuts and bolts of it?
tone
I agree that e-mail can be misinterpreted. I always try and read what I have written and put it through a spell check. My typing skills are extremely bad; I always make spelling mistakes which sets the tone of the e-mail to being angry. I have actually had to apologize to someone for writing her an "angry e-mail" when in fact I was congratulating her on a job well done. After that I try and be as careful as I can to maintain a good tone in an e-mail. There are enough troubles in this world as is, you don't need someone to get angry with an e-mail to make it any worse
Reading Response Comment
I agree with what you are saying, tone does make a very big the difference in an email, although there are many instances that tone can be misread in emails. I have experienced this problem from time to time when trying to communicate with many of my friends online; many times people will misinterpret a joking tone for a serious tone because the words themselves don’t convey the difference. I really think that the solution to this problem is to use verbal communication for messages that contain a lot of emotion, or may have a tone that could easily be misconstrued, and that email should be used for messages that are more informational and leave little to be interpreted.
Re: Reading Response Comment
I have had many of the same sort of experiences in communicating with friends online. Misinterpretting a joke for a serious tone seems to be a pretty common problem. I tend to use a lot of sarcasm when using text messaging or instant messaging. Occasionally, when messaging someone who isn't used to my sarcastic nature, they mistake my sarcasm for something else, such as a rude comment. And that isn't how I meant for it to be read at all! But, I think you're idea of using verbal communication for messages containing a lot of emotion is a good idea. I would help avoid a lot of potential problems.
Tones with email
I have a very hard time figuring out tones through email. Many times you can feel that someone is beginning to get angry with you, but that may not be the case. That is why I find email to be very frustrating but also very convienent. Email is very important in the business world, so you have to be sure to be exact while using email. Currrently while I am interning, email seems to be the easiest and best way to communicate with people, and I think that is how it is for many people. I have learned just by reading emails from executives with the foudation how precise email must be. For the most time very short and sweet, and with short and sweet can sometimes be taken as an angry tone. I have now realized that usually that person is not trying to be rude but to be precise and short and sweet.
Alayna Willis
Tones with email
I totally understand where you are coming from. It is too difficult to judge someone's tone when one can not hear their voice or see their face. When I write emails, I try my best not to use a anything but my normal tone. The way I see it is that if I need to talk to someone because they have made me angry or upset then I can either talk to them in person or atleast on the phone. Even though email is extremely important in today's business world, it does not replace human interaction.
reading response week 2
I agree with you that formal emails are becoming more useful in this day and age of technology. Sending and email is like sending a formal letter in the mail. The email form is just faster and easier due to the time factor.
Reading response week 2
I agree that one of the reason email has become very common in business world is that it can be much longer. Writing with hands restricts the length of content to be shorter than typing. Emails also make many adressee get the information at one time, hence make them involved in a conversation more effectively. Since writing emails takes much less time and energy, one can explain enoughly so that the reader can undertand easily in detail. However, despite of many advantages of email, I think we have to be very careful of misusing a word or tone or making a mistake of such as attaching a wrong file which may cause the addressee to waste their time. I think we will be able to be regarded as more professional employee by other colleagues in our future work places if we utilize the advantages of email by reducing gaffe and small mistakes.