Business and Technical Correspondence

I have been extremely interested in reading this section; letters, memos and emails are an integral part of most jobs, yet many people are not taught how to write these types of correspondence. Janis Chan's section on presenting a professional image in E-mail was the most interesting to me. E-mail is now a main avenue of communication, but its function in the workplace still seems undefined to me.

I have had two different experiences with e-mail. E-mail at SRC was for the most part formal. I learned that every correspondence should be written as if the CEO of the company was going to read it. You should be clear and concise in your message and should be structured much like a memo. This could be deviated from slightly but it was always a good rule of thumb. You were expected to do all of the things they talk about in the book: use correct grammar, complete sentences, etc.

Communication at Brandware Public Relations was completely different. This is a smaller company (15 total employees, SRC has around 1300) and has a small company culture. Interoffice email was very conversational. You were not expected to write in complete sentences, you could use abbreviations, and email was generally treated as an alternate way to communicate when you could not talk to someone in person or on the phone. This makes sense considering the business they are in where they wanted to build rapport and establish relationships; this can always be done better when speaking to someone.

It seems like the type of e-mail style that is acceptable depends a lot on the type of organization you are a part of. Like we have seen with other technical correspondence, there are many factors, such as corporate culture, that effect the way you write and communicate within and outside the organization.