Become more efficient at proofreading business emails with these quick steps.
Effective writing requires patience. Nobody likes patience, but everybody likes clarity. To write clearly, we need to become proofreading experts.
When you follow a systematic way of proofreading, your self-editing skills become more efficient and you don’t regret what you wrote or didn’t write.
When you take the time to proofread, your writing won’t be plagued with spelling, grammar mistakes or syntax errors. As you get more efficient with proofreading, your writing becomes more effective and you sound more professional.
In this post, I’m going to share 9 quick steps to proofread business emails like an expert.
Step 1: Check Clarity
Is the message clear and concise? Are pronouns understood? Are paragraphs short? Can you turn passive sentences into active sentences? Can you reduce the word count? Should you combine, separate or copy and paste sentences? Is there anything else you need to add, edit or delete?
Examples
❌ Mark wanted me to ask you if you’re thinking about coming to the seminar.
✔️ Are you coming to the seminar?
❌ The right time to decide is quickly approaching on Monday.
✔️ We must decide by Monday.
❌ In order to book the meeting room, we need to let them know soon.
✔️ We need to inform Hilton if we’re booking the meeting room by tomorrow.
❌ The contract was signed.
✔️ George Hutchins signed the contract.
Step 2: Check Specifics
Can the subject line be reduced to a few keywords with hyphens? Is it clear why you’re emailing? Are questions obvious? Are dates and times provided? Do you need to answer questions (if responding to an email)?
Examples
❌ The company-wide meeting is on Friday at 2:00
✔️ Friday All-Hands Meeting — 2:00 pm
❌ I wonder what the problem could be. Can you send me a picture?
✔️ Can you send me a screenshot of the error message today?
❌ Are you free this week?
✔️ Are you available on Friday at 10:00 am? If not, when’s best for you?
Step 3: Check Tone
Have you shown that you understand and share the feelings of the recipient? How will he/she feel reading the message? Is it polite and friendly? Have you included courtesies? Is the message overly negative, opinionated or unappreciative? Could the message be misread or misunderstood?
Examples
❌ Why’d you do that?
✔️ Let’s work together to find a better solution.
❌ Stop wasting time with this project.
✔️ Let’s move on to the next project.
❌ I need to know ASAP!!!
✔️ Could you let me know by 5:00 pm today?
Step 4: Check Names
Ensure you’ve spelled names correctly. Spell checkers can identify some, but not all names of people, companies and products/services. When you write names correctly, your recipients won’t notice. However, when you get names wrong, recipients won’t forget — especially if it’s their name.
Examples
❌ Sara Johnston
✔️ Sarah Johnson
❌ Joan MacDonald
✔️ John McDonald
❌ Go Pro
✔️ GoPro
❌ iWatch
✔️ Apple Watch
Step 5: Check Attachments
If applicable, check that attachments have been properly introduced, titled and attached. Otherwise, recipients may overlook them.
Also, avoid emailing confidential information or requesting signatures via email. Instead, use a secure file-sharing service like Dropbox, Droplr or WeTransfer.
Examples
❌ Please see attachment
✔️ I’ve included a PDF map from San Francisco International Airport to Vandelay Industries.
❌ I’ve included an attachment about that below.
✔️ PDF Attachment: Map from San Francisco International Airport to Vandelay Industries.
Step 6: Check Spelling and Grammar
After you’ve finished editing your email, copy and paste the message into the free version of Grammarly. This service is like having a personal editor correct your spelling and grammar errors. You may not agree with every suggestion and that’s alright. Reviewing the suggestions is important, though, because it helps you identify mistakes that need to be addressed.
If you’re on a mobile or tablet device, use the Grammarly Keyboard and you won’t even have to leave your email application.
Examples
❌ I’ll will be there form 10–11.
✔️ I’ll be there from 10–11 am.
❌ I’d really appreciate you’re input on Larries proposal.
✔️ I’d appreciate your input on Larry’s proposal.
❌ Heidis coming tomorrow. Is she?
✔️ Heidi’s coming tomorrow, isn’t she?
❌ When are you accepting me?
✔️ When are you expecting me?
Step 7: Proofread
Read the entire message aloud. As you’re reading, ensure you’ve addressed each step listed above. If you need to make edits — pause, revise and then proofread again.
Step 8: Proof-Listen
Text-to-speech on iPadOS.
Even though you’ve proofread your message, you may still be reading over mistakes or have syntax errors. A great way to catch these problems is to proof-listen — to have your device read highlighted text back to you. When you proof-listen, you may also discover that what you wrote isn’t well written and may need to be revised.
If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac computer, this accessibility feature can be enabled in settings.
iOS and iPadOS
- Tap Settings
- Tap Accessibility
- Tap Spoken Content
- Enable Speak Selection
- Open Mail
- Highlight your message
- Tap Speak
macOS
- Click Settings
- Click Accessibility
- Click Speech
- Check Speak selected text when the key is pressed. The default keys are Option+Esc.
- Open Mail
- Highlight your message
- Click Option+Esc
Step 9: Reflect
If you’re sending an important email that isn’t time-sensitive, you may want to wait a few hours or an entire day to reflect on what you’ve written. If you’re still unsure, share your message with a friend or trusted colleague. Getting your message perfect could make all the difference. Time, after all, is the best editor.
Final Thoughts
You just learned 9 quick steps to proofread business emails like an expert. These steps may seem excessive at first, but once you start implementing them regularly, they’ll become habitual and your writing will improve.
Written By: Jeff Shibasaki
Culled from: https://medium.com/culture-gaps/proofread-business-emails-1808c672cfc6
