关注公众号【Laylanote】，获取更多优质英语学习资源。

From:  Harvard Business Review & Jeff Su

OK, real talk. Making email etiquette mistakes in the workplace it's not going to capsize your career, but learning the unspoken rules of writing professional emails will affect how competent you are perceived to be in the eyes of your colleagues. And since there are no standardized training courses for this, in this video, I'm going to first share the very real benefits of getting good at emailing in the workplace, then dive into my top eight tips for professional email etiquette many of which I learned the hard way during my first full time job as a management consultant.  So let's get started. 

好吧，实话实说。在职场中犯电子邮件礼仪错误不会毁掉你的职业生涯，但学习撰写专业电子邮件的潜规则会影响同事眼中你的能力。由于没有这方面的标准化培训课程，在本视频中，我将首先分享在工作场所写好电子邮件的实际好处，然后深入介绍我的八大专业电子邮件礼仪技巧，其中许多技巧都是我在第一份全职工作——管理顾问——中辛苦学到的。让我们开始吧。

Hi, everyone. My name is Jeff, and I'm truly honored to be able to partner with Harvard Business Review for this video about a nerdy passion of mine. Email etiquette in the workplace. Think back to the last time you received a poorly written email, you might have had to reread it a few times to get the main point and the action items might have been scattered all over the place. Worst case scenario, it led to an unnecessarily long back and forth email thread that could have been avoided had the initial email been properly planned out and therein lies the beauty of well crafted emails. Not only does it help you the sender come across as more capable by showcasing strong communication skills, but also saves the reader so much of their time by only surfacing information relevant to them. 

大家好。我叫杰夫，很荣幸能与《哈佛商业评论》合作，为大家带来一段关于我的书呆子爱好的视频：工作场所的电子邮件礼仪。回想一下，上一次你收到一封文不对题的电子邮件时，你可能要重读几遍才能明白其中的重点，而且其中的操作项目可能散落一地。最糟糕的情况是，它导致了不必要的来回邮件，而如果最初的邮件计划得当，这一切都可以避免。精心制作电子邮件的好处就在于此，它不仅能通过展示强大的沟通技巧让发件人显得更有能力，还能只提供与收件人相关的信息，从而节省他们的大量时间。

So without further ado, my first step is to have a call to action when appropriate in the email subject line. Most of us are familiar with a generic action required in subject lines all right?  My recommendation is just take it a step further and include exactly what you need the recipient to do and the estimated time it takes for them to do it. For example, instead of writing action required, feedback for project X, write five minutes survey feedback for project X instead. This very small trick probably gave you a lot more context. It's a survey for project X I can get it done very quickly in between the two meetings I have. Or if it's not appropriate to include the estimated time, be specific about the call to action. For example, instead of spending estimates for Q4, write Elon to approve spending estimates for Q4. So Elon knows what's expected of him even before he opens the email. 

话不多说，我的第一步就是在电子邮件主题行中适时加入行动号召。我们大多数人都熟悉主题行中的一般行动要求，对吗？我的建议是更进一步，写明你需要收件人做什么，以及他们完成这件事预计需要的时间。例如，不要写 “要求采取的行动”、“对X项目的反馈”，而是写 “对X项目的五分钟调查反馈”。这个非常小的技巧可能会给你提供更多的背景信息。这是对X项目的调查，我可以在两次会议之间很快完成。或者，如果不适合包含预计时间，就具体说明行动号召。例如，与其写第四季度的支出估算，不如写埃隆批准第四季度的支出估算。这样，埃隆在打开邮件之前就知道了对他的期望。

Step number two, stick with one email thread for the same topic. I'm going to be honest I got called out for this by colleague of mine, but I'm glad she told me. Basically I used to send out separate emails for the same project whenever I had a new idea or follow up question. But if you think about it from the recipient's point of view, they're missing the context from the original email thread and multiple new emails on the same topic just clog up their inboxes unnecessarily. So the general rule of thumb here is to stick to the original email chain for any given topic. So everyone can refer to the same information. 

第二步，坚持使用同一主题的一封电子邮件。老实说，我的同事为此骂过我，但我很高兴她告诉了我。基本上，每当我有新的想法或后续问题时，我都会为同一个项目发送不同的邮件。但是，如果你从收件人的角度考虑，他们就会错过原始邮件主题的上下文，而且关于同一主题的多封新邮件只会不必要地堵塞他们的收件箱。因此，一般的经验法则是，对于任何特定主题，都要坚持使用原始邮件链。这样每个人都能参考相同的信息。

Email etiquette tip number three, explain why you added in or took out recipients in email threads.  There are many situations you have to add someone in to the email thread to get their input,  or take someone out to spare their inbox.  A professional and easy way to do this is to add a sentence at the very top of the email clearly showing who you added in or took out. I'd like to add parentheses and italicize the font to separate it from the actual email body this way the readers know who the new recipients are immediately.  

电子邮件礼仪提示三，解释为什么要添加或删除电子邮件主题中的收件人。在很多情况下，你必须将某人加入邮件主题以征求其意见，或将某人删除以避免影响其收件箱。专业而简便的方法是在邮件顶部添加一句话，清楚地说明你添加或删除了谁。我想添加括号并用斜体将其与邮件正文分开，这样读者就能立即知道新的收件人是谁。

Tip number four, actually addresses a very big pet peeve of mine, which is when senders include a lot information up front, but what they're really trying to get at or ask for is at the very end of the email. To avoid that always include your main point first, followed by the context. Just compare these two emails. 

第四条提示实际上解决了我的一个大忌，那就是当发件人在前面提供了很多信息，但他们真正想表达或要求的东西却在邮件的最后。要避免这种情况，一定要先写出要点，然后再写上下文。比较一下这两封邮件 。

Hi Jane, my name is Jeff and I'm in the product marketing team. We're preparing a forecast deck for the big boss and he's looking for the revenue projection numbers for the secret electric car that's launching soon. Can I trouble you to pull that data for me? 

嗨，简，我叫杰夫，是产品营销团队的一员。我们正在为大老板准备一份预测报告，他正在寻找即将推出的秘密电动汽车的收入预测数据。能麻烦你帮我调一下数据吗？

Compare that with, 

对比一下，

Hi Jane, may l please trouble you for the electric car revenue projection numbers? 

Context

The product marketing team is currently preparing a forecast deck for the big boss and we're hoping to use the projections to fight for more budget. It would be amazing to get numbers for 2025-2030 in a Google Sheets format. 

嗨，简，我能麻烦你提供电动汽车的收入预测数据吗？背景，产品营销团队目前正在为大老板准备一份预测报告，我们希望利用预测报告争取更多预算。如果能以谷歌工作表的格式提供 2025-2030 年的数据，那就太好了。

By pushing the context back, we're giving the other person the option to read the not so important part of the email. Oftentimes when we're emailing someone more senior than us, we feel obligated to explain why we're emailing right at the beginning so it doesn't seem like we're bothering them. This is actually counterproductive because if the person is very senior they probably just want to know what you're emailing them about how they can help deal with it then move on with their own schedules.  

通过将上下文往后推，我们给了其他人阅读邮件中不那么重要的部分的选择。通常，当我们给比我们资历深的人发邮件时，我们会觉得有义务在一开始就解释我们发邮件的原因，这样就不会让对方觉得我们在打扰他们。这实际上会适得其反，因为如果对方是非常资深的人，他们可能只想知道你给他们发邮件的内容，告诉他们如何帮助处理这件事，然后继续自己的日程安排。

Tip number five, if you receive an email with a lot of disorganized content, summarize the sender's main points for them in your reply. So if you receive an email from someone who clearly has not watched this video and sent you a long wordy convoluted message you have to reread a few times you want to do two things. Number one, send them this video, number two, take a few minutes identify and bucket common themes from their email and summarize their message in a few sentences before responding to whatever they're emailing you about. Not only does this help you confirm your understanding is correct, the other party will appreciate the extra effort you took to help them organize their thoughts. 

技巧五，如果你收到一封内容杂乱无章的电子邮件，请在回复中为发件人总结要点。因此，如果你收到一封邮件，对方显然没有看过这个视频，并给你发了一封冗长的邮件，让你不得不重读几遍，你要做两件事。第一，给他们发送这个视频；第二，花几分钟时间从他们的邮件中找出共同的主题，用几句话概括他们的信息，然后再回复他们的邮件。这不仅能帮助你确认自己的理解是否正确，对方也会感激你为帮助他们整理思路而付出的额外努力。

Email etiquette tip number six, hyperlink whatever possible. This is another pet peeve of mine. If you're sharing a link with someone over email, you really should take the extra few seconds to hit Command K on Mac or Control K on Windows and hyperlink the external website or video. Not only to this looks so much cleaner to the recipient than just pasting the big clunky link, but it also decreases the chances of you making a mistake by adding an extra letter or deleting one in the original URL.  

电子邮件礼仪技巧六，尽可能使用超链接。这是我的另一个心病。如果你要通过电子邮件与别人分享一个链接，你真的应该多花几秒钟，在Mac上按Command K键，或在Windows上按 Control K键，然后超链接外部网站或视频。对收件人来说，这不仅比直接粘贴大而笨重的链接要干净得多，而且还能减少你在原始URL中多加一个字母或删除一个字母而出错的几率。

Tip number seven, change default setting to reply instead of reply all. This is honestly the risk averse side of me talking. The way I think about it, let's say your reply to an email in a rush and you do make a mistake, the damage is contained to that one recipient because your default setting is a reply to one person instead of reply to all. This is a standard setting and most if not all of the popular email clients and you can usually find this in the general settings section.  

提示七，将默认设置改为回复，而不是全部回复。老实说，这是我规避风险的一面在说话。我的想法是，假设你在匆忙中回复了一封邮件，而你确实犯了一个错误，那么损失就只限于那一个收件人，因为你的默认设置是回复给一个人，而不是回复给所有人。这是大多数常用电子邮件客户端的标准设置，通常可以在常规设置中找到。

And email etiquette tip number eight, change undo send option to 30 seconds. So you might not know this, but Murphy's law when it comes to emailing the workplace, is that you will always catch your mistakes 10 seconds after the email is already sent. All jokes aside I'm sure we've all been there. We send an email we go into the sent email folder to read it from the other person's perspective and we realize something is wrong. Again this is a standard setting you can play around with in all of the email apps. Instead of the default five seconds undo send, for example, we can change it to 30 seconds for good measure.

电子邮件礼仪技巧八，将撤消发送选项改为30秒。你可能不知道，在给工作场所发送电子邮件时，墨菲定律就是你总是会在邮件发出10秒后才发现自己的错误。玩笑归玩笑，我相信大家都有过这样的经历。我们发送了一封邮件，然后进入已发送邮件文件夹，从对方的角度阅读邮件，然后我们就会意识到有些地方不对。同样，这也是一个标准设置，你可以在所有电子邮件应用中随意使用。例如，我们不再使用默认的5秒撤回发送时间，而是将其延长至30秒。

Please let me and the HBR team know down the comments below, which one of these tips was your favorite. Or perhaps which ones you've already been using all this time. If you'd like to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I make content on how to increase productivity at work, feel free to click right here or search for JEFF SU. See you on the next video, and In the meantime, have a great one. 

请在下面的评论中告诉我和HBR团队，哪条建议是您最喜欢的。或者，哪些是你一直以来都在使用的。如果你想订阅我的YouTube频道，我在这里制作关于如何提高工作效率的内容，请点击这里或搜索Jeff Su。下期视频再见，与此同时，祝你有个愉快的一天。

End

关注公众号【Laylanote】，获取更多优质英语学习资源。