How to communicate effectively through email
Dmitry Berenson
You may think you don’t need to know how to communicate through email, you’ve probably sent thousands of emails already. But it turns out that the email etiquette we use in research is somewhat different from that used elsewhere. It can be very useful to know how to email effectively so you avoid upsetting people and can get help when you need it. Keep in mind that email is the primary mode for communication in research. As you advance farther in research, you will be writing more and more emails.
Why are you writing this email?
Don’t write emails unless you need to. There are generally four reasons to write an email:
This would be something like “a deadline is coming up on ___” or “we have completed component xyz, which you were waiting for.” Be direct and, most importantly, specific. Include numbers wherever possible. For instance “we ran the algorithm and it was pretty fast” is a nearly useless statement. Instead you could say “we ran the algorithm 50 times and the mean runtime was 0.2 seconds with a variance of 0.05 seconds.”
This email should be extremely brief and include
Be direct about what you want to know and don’t put a lot of pre-explanation. It's best, whenever possible, to lead with the question and provide the explanation of the question afterward.
Be very specific about what you want the person to do. For more ambiguous tasks, it’s helpful to include a rough estimate of how long this should take. Make sure to provide links to all relevant information necessary to complete the task. The “why” is sometimes obvious but other times you may need to explain why you want this to be done. Again, lead with the request and explain why and give relevant info afterwards.
Sometimes you might need to write an email for another reason, but these four are, by far, the most common. Sometimes you might need to mix these (for instance, inform someone and then ask a question). That’s OK if it’s on the same topic but for different topics it’s easier to send separate emails so the threads can be kept separate.
Etiquette
Different cultures have different standards of etiquette. In the U.S., it’s common to start an email with “Hi ___,” where ___ is the name of the person (or people) you’re emailing. This is the person (or people) that’s supposed to read and respond to what you are saying. Others who should know that the email was sent or who might want to chime in at some point should be CCed and not included in the “Hi ___,” line. Note that you should do this even if you are only sending the email to one person, unless you know this person really really well.
It’s also important to add a personal element to the email when and where appropriate. For instance, if you’re emailing someone you’ve met before but you don’t know well, remind them where you’ve met. It’s always good to briefly check in with people you know (e.g. “How is your ____ project going?”) before asking them for something.
It’s also a good idea to sign your email with your name, just to be polite. You don’t need a huge formal signature (but this is useful if you want to provide a link to your website, for instance).
Finally, it’s important to consider who it is you are emailing. There are three categories for your recipient (depending on their relation to you). In research these kinds of hierarchies are often ambiguous, so err on the side of assuming they are “higher”.
This type would apply to, for instance, a grad student emailing a professor. The number one criterion here is: Be brief! Because people above you deal with a lot more emails than you, they may not have time for long in-depth reads. Be respectful but don’t over-do it. I sometimes get emails that start with “Dear Respected Professor Doctor Dmitry Berenson.” This may be appropriate in some cultures but in general it’s going too far. Conversely, you don’t want to go too far in the other direction. if you don’t know the person well, don’t just address them by their first name (note: I’m actually OK with this but I know people that aren’t).
This would be, for instance, a grad student emailing another grad student. Usually you would use the person’s first name to address them here (although, be careful to calibrate to the recipient’s culture, which may be different from your own). Be direct but don’t be pushy. Respect that they probably have just as much work to do as you do, so don’t expect immediate replies. In general you want to follow the golden rule here: [email] unto others as you would have others [email] unto you.
This would be, for instance, a grad student emailing an undergrad. Again, be direct and make clear what it is you want from that person but phrase it as a request, not a command. It’s also important to treat the person with respect. Don’t take them for granted or be overly casual just because of your status. That can be very off-putting and may discourage them from working with you.
Following up
Sometimes the people you email may be slow to get back to you (if they answer at all). This happens most often when you email people higher than you. If the person you emailed hasn’t replied in several days and they aren’t away at a conference or on vacation, try following up by emailing them again and gently reminding them to reply. If they still don’t reply, seek a different way to contact them; i.e. try to catch them in their office (if they are local) or try a phone call. Don’t go too far; it can be the case that the person is just too busy to talk to you at this time.
If you email someone on your level or lower than you and they don’t reply after a gentle reminder, it may be appropriate to appeal to a higher authority. This can be, for instance, your advisor or their advisor or both. One common tactic is to CC someone more important who has a direct effect on that person’s fate (e.g. their boss). Since that person doesn’t want to look bad in the eyes of their boss/advisor, they will be much more motivated to reply.
Keeping people in the loop
When communicating information, you need to make sure that everyone who has an interest in the information is kept in the loop. This is achieved by CCing. If you’re in doubt about whether the person will find the information useful or not, CC them anyway! It’s much better to err on the side of giving too much information than too little. People can become very upset if they aren’t kept informed of something they care about. Alternatively, people will be at most a little bit annoyed if they get information that isn’t pertinent to them (they will probably just ignore it).
Replying to Emails sent to you
As a rule, you should do everything in your power to reply to important emails in at most one day, but preferably in a matter of hours. Unsolicited email from people you don’t know is a completely different story. For this kind of email you may not reply at all or might delay your reply for a few days. However, keep in mind that others, especially those in the “higher” category, may reply less often because they have much more email to deal with.