A Beginner's Guide to Writing Emails

By Kelly Zou

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How to Format an Email

Emails have become a popular form of communication for work, school, and personal life. It’s important to appear eloquent and professional while keeping correspondences polite and concise. This guide will outline the basic structure of a quality email and provide tips for writing your own.

Start with a brief email subject

Fill in the subject line with a summary of your email contents. There’s no need to label your email as “important” or rush the person you are trying to reach. In fact, this could come off as impolite. If you’re emailing a teacher about a class, it’s generally good to include the class period in the title.

Say hello

Your email should begin with a greeting in the first line.

Easy ways of doing so include

• Dear ___,

• Hello ___,

If you are emailing a business or company and don’t know the name of the person who will reply, you can begin with

• To whom it may concern,

Include a polite transition

On the next line, transition into the main message with a greeting. General ideas include

• I hope you are doing well.

• I hope your day is going well.

• I hope you had a good [weekend/morning/holiday].

You can be more specific if you wish. For example, if your coworker just came back from a sick leave, you could say

• I’m glad you’re feeling better.

If you’re emailing someone who was just hired, it would be good to say

• Welcome to our company.

Additionally, if you know your correspondent will be seeing the email at a certain time, you can say “good morning,” “good afternoon,” etc.

Add the body of the message

State the reason for your email, be it a question, the submission of a file, a comment or complaint, etc. Remember to be clear about what you would like your correspondent to do next. For example, do you need them to forward a file to you, clarify a concept, or fix an issue? A good format for this is

• I would appreciate it if you could ___.

• Could you please ___?

Be sure to explain any files or links you are sending, if applicable.

End by saying thank you

Once you have finished the point of your message, it’s always nice to end with a simple “thank you” or something similar to show your appreciation.

Sign off

Finally, on the last lines of your email, you should sign off. You can write “sincerely” before your name if you would like, or you can combine your “thank you” with your sign off. Many professionals include their titles as well.

• Sincerely,

• Your student,

• Thanks again,

Examples

Forms for job applications

To whom it may concern,

I hope you are doing well. I saw the job opening on the company website and was wondering if I could have the application form. Could you please email the documents to me?

Thank you,

Isabella Lee

Essay submission for English period 1

Hello Ms. Brown,

I hope you’re having a great weekend. I would like to submit my final essay for the end of year project, attached below. Thank you, see you next week!

Sincerely,

Connor Abshire

Re: Question about after school activities

Good morning Emma,

I’m not sure of the answer to your question, but I will ask the administration and get back to you soon. Thanks for reaching out!

Robert Green, Ph.D.

School counselor, grades 11-12

Virginia High School