How to Write a Formal Email: 12 Rules

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. In the next few

minutes, you'll learn how to write a formal

email and what principles you can follow of what you should do and what you should not

do. Okay? So, when do you need to write a

formal email? Because today we do write lots

of emails, there's no question about it, and

definitely all of them should not be formal.

Once we have a relationship with someone at

work or outside of work, we don't write formal

emails. Right? But sometimes you do need to

write a formal email. For example, if you're

applying for a job, or if you're trying to get a new client, or if you're writing to

a university. Right? Then you do need to be more formal. And in general, we need to be

more formal whenever we're writing to someone

that we don't know already. Okay? So that's

kind of the way that you can decide if I should

write a formal email or an informal email.

Okay? So now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to present the 12 principles that you

can follow, the 12 kind of rules, and then I'll

also show you how to apply those principles

by working and checking an actual email which

has some of these mistakes, and then we'll

go through it together, and you can help me to find and correct the mistakes. Okay? So,

here we go.

All right, so the first thing, and some of

these... Okay, before I start, some of these

might seem really obvious, and you're going to

say, "Rebecca, I know that." But some people

don't. I'm sure you do, but some other people

don't somewhere. So, if you know it, great.

If you don't, then just make sure you remember

it from now on. Okay. So, the first thing

is emoticons. What are emoticons? Okay, so emoticons, first of all, are these kind of

little cute symbols, smiley faces, and things

like that that we use a lot today. All right?

In texting and so on, but we should not use

them in formal emails. Okay? So, no emoticons.

Next, texting kind of short forms and texting

language, such as "How are you?" written as

an "r" and a "u", or "why", the word "why" written just as a "y", or "I see", as in "I

understand", just written as the letters

"ic". Now, this is perfectly okay when you're

texting your friends or even other people that you know well, but it is certainly not

okay to use in a formal email. It doesn't make you look good. You always want to use

your best English when you're approaching someone for the first time. Okay?

Next, slang. No slang and no jokes. Why? Well,

slang is just not proper with... In a formal

situation, so you want to stay away from that,

and you want to avoid jokes because humor

is a very culturally sensitive issue, and what you consider funny might not be what

somebody else considers funny, so it's best to

avoid the jokes. And by slang, I mean things

like saying "I screwed up" or instead of saying

"I made a mistake" or saying "I was zonked"

when you want to say "I was exhausted". Okay?

Try to find the equivalent, proper English

word for whatever it is you're trying to express. Okay?

Next, try to avoid idioms in a formal email.

Now, you'll see that on our website, we have

a lot of lessons about idioms and even business

idioms, and it's perfectly okay and good for

you to learn them and even try to start using

them when you're talking to your colleagues

at work or other people at work. Again, people

and situations with which you're familiar.

Okay? But if you're reaching out for the first

time to someone, idioms are not considered

formal ways of expressing yourself. For example,

if you want to say that something was extremely

easy, use those words. Don't say "It was a piece of cake", which is an idiom. Okay?

If you want to say "This was the strategy that I followed", say that. Don't say "That

was the game plan." Okay? So, avoid idioms in formal emails.

Next, contractions. Now, this is a little bit

tricky because sometimes we can use contractions,

but overall, if you're trying to be really formal, then avoid contractions when it's

a subject or a verb. So, instead of "I'll", "I will contact you tomorrow", say "I will

contact you tomorrow". Instead of "we'll", say "we will". Okay? Instead of "don't",

say "do not". Instead of "can't", say "cannot",

and so on. Okay? So, avoid the contractions.

Don't make it sound unnaturally formal, but keep it formal. Okay?

All right. Next, avoid abbreviations. All right? What do I mean by abbreviations? For

example, even in business correspondence, we often say "ASAP". Now, "ASAP" means "as

soon as possible". Okay? But you don't want to use that the first time you're reaching

out to someone, or you don't want to use that

in a formal email. Write out all the words.

"As soon as possible". Also, in case you're communicating in English with people from

around the world, they might not know those

kind of short forms and abbreviations. Okay?

And you don't want to make it that they feel

bad or they just simply don't understand what

you've written. Okay? So, don't say "ASAP", say "as soon as possible".

And even things like "info" instead of "information".

All right? Again, when you know somebody well,

you can use those short forms; when you don't,

avoid them. All right? Okay. So, that... Those

were some basic first... The first six are

pretty basic. Now we come to some little more

serious principles that you should follow. And in fact, these are so serious that we

have lessons on engVid on each and every one

of these lessons, these principles. Okay?

So, if you're not sure when I explain them

or you want more ideas of how to do it well,

then I'll also show you where you can watch lessons on these.

So, number seven, subject lines. What's the subject line? When we send an email at the

top-right, what do we see? Whatever somebody

writes is the main subject. What is that email

about? Now, unfortunately, I do still receive

a lot of emails where people are just not

writing anything in the subject line. So,

sometimes there's nothing written, or sometimes

they just write "re", which means "regarding";

it's short for "regarding", but then they

don't write anything after that. Or they write

"ref", which means "referring to" or "referenced

to", but again, sometimes they write nothing

after that. And that's all really bad because

today people are getting so many emails, so if you want anyone to open your email, you

really need to write a strong subject line. And there are some very good ways in which

you can do that, which I show you in my other

lesson. Even if you write a word, like "meeting",

okay? Suppose you're writing to somebody about

the meeting. Is that a good subject line?

No, that's a bad subject line because what are

you saying about the meeting? Which meeting?

When? What? So, are you saying... Requesting

a meeting? Canceling a meeting? Postponing

a meeting? Rescheduling a meeting? Those are

the words you need to write, okay? And again,

if you want to learn how to write those, I'll

show you where you can watch a lesson on that.

Okay, next, "salutations". So, "salutations"

are how we begin and end the letter. Like

in an informal email, you just say "hi" or "hey" or "hey, John" or "hi, Mary" or even

"hello", okay? And you might end an informal

email by just saying "take care", okay, or

"bye" or something like that, or "see you

later", but in a formal email, obviously you

don't want to do that. So again, we have a

lesson on that, I have a lesson on that, where

you can learn what's the proper formal way to

begin, and that's usually with "dear" something.

If you don't know the person's last name... First

name, or if you... Sorry. Even if you know the

person's first name, you should use the person's

last name. Always start more formally with all

of this, okay? The thing to keep in mind, the

point to keep in mind is to start more formally,

and then as you start to correspond with someone

and they become more informal, then you can also

adjust your letter-writing style accordingly.

Okay? So here, you could start with, like, "Dear

Mr. Johnson", okay? And you could end with "Yours

sincerely", okay? Something like that. Again,

there is a system of how to start and how to end based on how formal it is,

and you need to know that system so that you can use it in the right time.

Now, intensifiers. Okay? I have recently released

a lesson on this, and a lot of people really like

that lesson because they were using this word

"really" a lot. For example, "really" is an

intensifier. What does it mean? If I want to say

that I was very interested, I could say I was

really interested, but you don't want to keep

using "really" all the time because it's rather

informal. It's fine to use it when you're

speaking. We tend to use it a lot when we're

speaking; I just used it. But when you're writing,

and especially when you're writing more formally,

you want to use something more formal. For

example, you could say, "I'm extremely interested."

Instead of saying, "I so appreciate", again, "so"

is informal, you can say, "I truly appreciate",

"I sincerely appreciate". Okay? And these wonderful expressions with intensifiers,

you can learn, and you can start to use them

more naturally in your writing. Okay? It'll also

show that your English is much more advanced.

Okay. Of course, the verbs and the nouns that

we use are very important, and sometimes people

don't realize that they're using an informal

vocab... Verb. For example, instead of saying,

"Fix the problem", what could you say? This is

something we just say casually. Right? So, we

could say, "We need to resolve the issue." Or

instead of saying, "We need to use the new ideas

in our company", you need to say, "I need to

implement these ideas", or "implement these

recommendations", or "implement these policies".

Okay? And in fact, in my series on Speak Like

a Manager, we talk about exactly how to raise

your English level by using these kind of very

powerful verbs. Okay? So you might want to check

that out. Also, certain nouns. People have gotten

used to using a lot of nouns when we're speaking

casually, like "stuff", you know, "I need to

take... Get my stuff.", "Can you give me those

things?" or "Hey, you guys.", and that's fine

in regular, casual conversation, even at work,

with people you really know well. But when you're

writing a formal email, don't use that language.

Okay? It really doesn't look good. Say what you

want to say. Talk... Use the exact word. Instead

of saying "stuff", say "material", say "presentation",

whatever it is you're talking about. Say

"project". Instead of "things", say "equipment"

or whatever. Instead of saying "the guys in the

office", you can say "my colleagues", "my

employees", "my team". Okay? Use a more professional

word. All right. And last is something called

"redundancies". You might have seen my lesson

on this. If not, you can check it out. And redundancies are basically when we repeat

words unnecessarily. And this is done a lot

without people even realizing it, which is why

I also wrote some years ago a resource which you

can download which has a list of, like, more than

100 redundancies which people are using without

realizing. So let me give you an example of a

redundancy. So if you say, for example, "another

alternative". "Another alternative" is we could

meet on Sunday. Well, "alternative" means

another option, so you don't need to say "another

alternative". That's redundant or repetitive, and

you don't need to do it. If you say, "We need to

progress forward", well, that's also wrong, actually. That's a redundancy, because "to

progress" means to go forward, so you don't need

this word, and you don't need this word. Okay?

"We need to progress", and you can drop that

other word. Okay? So I know there were a lot

of different points here, but I hope that step by

step you understood them. And what we're going to

do now is we're going to look at an email which

makes some of these mistakes, and you're going

to help me to check it so that you can really

remember these points very well. All right.

So now let's check this email together and see how

we should correct it and improve on it. All right?

Now, this is the situation. So this person,

George, wrote an email to his boss, his new boss,

his new manager. So he doesn't really have a very

informal relationship yet; they don't know each

other very well, so of course George should be

writing in a semi-formal to formal way. But let's

what George wrote and how we can improve on

it. All right, so this was the subject line,

presentation. Is that enough? Well, it's better

than not writing anything, but it doesn't tell

us anything, doesn't tell his boss anything about

that presentation. So we'll see later how we might

improve on that. Okay? So he started the email

by saying, "Hey, Jim." All right, so what's wrong

there? It's obviously it's too informal. We can't

say, "Hey, Jim" to your manager, not the new one.

So how could he have started? Let's say his name

was Jim Walker, he could have said, "Dear Mr.

Walker", or if he knows him by first name and if

he calls him by first name, then he could have

written, "Dear Jim". All right? Because until Jim

is writing back in an informal way, he can't write

back in an informal way. Okay. Then he writes,

"Hope you are good" with an emoticon. So, of course,

we learned no emoticons. Right? So we're going

to get rid of that. This part was not very good.

"Hope you are", no, we want to write out the words in

full. "You are", and also not, "Hope you are good".

This whole expression should really be cancelled,

and what you could say instead is, "Dear Jim",

let's say, "I hope you have been well." Let's

say you've been away. "I hope you've been well.

I hope all is well." Then he says, "My flight

to London is all messed up, so I'll be returning

back on Wednesday." So, what's wrong there?

Okay. "My flight to London is all messed up." So,

that's slang, and you don't want to use slang.

What you could say instead, "My flight to London

has been delayed." All right? If that's the

situation. And so, "I will be returning", or

here you could say, because it's somebody

you know, you could use the contraction here.

"So, I'll be returning back on Wednesday."

All right. So, again, here we have an issue,

because "returning back" is what? A redundancy,

because "to return" means to go back or come back,

right? So, we don't need to use the word "back".

"So, I'll be returning on Wednesday." Again,

"wed" is an abbreviation, and you don't want to use an abbreviation, so you should

write out the word, okay, completely. Also, when

an abbreviation is used like that at the end of a

word, on "wed", what does that mean? I don't know.

I don't understand. Okay? So, make sure it's very

clear. Okay? "Can you send my presentation to the guys in engineering ASAP?" Okay. So,

a few problems there, right? Can you see them?

So, here, even though I didn't mention it

specifically, of course, when you're writing

a more formal email, you should be polite,

as polite as possible. So, what's missing here? We could really say, "Could you...

Could you please send my presentation not to

the guys?" Because "guys" is too informal and

very casual. So, we could say to the... Let's

say to the... Okay, here, he said the guys in

engineering, so we could say to the engineering

department, to the engineering team, or whatever

it means, whatever the situation is. And instead

of saying "ASAP", you should write out the words

as soon as possible. Okay? So, that's also an

error there. Then he says, "Thanks". Now, "thanks"

is more informal, so actually, if you want to be

a little bit more formal, say, "Thank you." Okay?

Sorry. Thank you. And "take care", again, very

informal, because you don't want to say that.

You could say, "Best regards". And don't just

write "G". If his name is George, you should

write out his name. Okay? So, here you see that

even in a short email, there could actually be

lots of mistakes when you're trying to write in

a more formal way, so pay attention to those 12

principles that we talked about, and that way,

you will know that your email is written in the

right way for the right audience. Okay? So, if

you'd like to do a quiz on this, please go to

our website at www.engvid.com. There, you can do

a quiz to review these 12 concepts and really know

them well, so the next time you need to write a

formal email, you'll know exactly how. And then,

you can also... Don't forget to subscribe to

my YouTube channel. Okay? Because that way,

you can keep on getting lots of lessons that I hope will help you to learn English

much more efficiently and with a lot more fun

and relaxation. All right? And remember those

about six or seven lessons that I told you that

there are links? So, in the lesson description,

there are links to my lessons which have detailed explanations of some of those

points that we spoke about, so don't forget to

check those out because that will help you to go

even further with your English. Bye for now. All the best with your English.