Use inbox-zero philosophy. Every inbound mail has an action to do with it:
You may or may not use a single account for everything. Gmail can aggregate many accounts. But keep in mind that mixing work and pleasure is not for most people.
Greeting
Dear Sir/Madam,
Dear Miss Austen,
Dear Jane,
Use comma (,), not colon (:).
This (;) is called semicolon.
Only in formal letters:
I am writing to you with regard to…
Be polite
Always be polite, especially when you are expressing controversial opinions:
I think…
I believe…
As (far as) I see it…
You have to distinguish between facts and opinions. If you can’t tell the difference, try to be neutral at all times with the aforementioned expressions.
Enumerate
Only in formal letters:
Firstly
Secondly
Lastly
Farewell
I hope we can get this sorted out / solved / fixed / repaired soon
Phrasal verbs are more formal than regular verbs
Only in formal letters:
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Farewell expressions:
Best wishes
Kind regards (typical informal)
Yours sincerely
Thank you and best wishes
Signature
Make a signature and use it in every job-related mail.
Signature may or may not appear by default. If not, you should assign a keyboard shortcut/ text replacement to invoke it.
Keep it simple and short. Avoid images. Name and job title will suffice. You may want to use links to your employer’s page.
Your phone number doesn’t have to be in every mail signature. Maybe you don’t want to give it to everyone.
Phone numbers can be linked with this prefix: tel:+34611111111
To, BC and BCC
To: Email recipient(s).
CC (Carbon Copy): Not the recipient, but people who may also be interested in reading the contents of the mail. A reply is not expected from those people.
BCC (Blind Carbon Copy): while you can see a list of recipients when CC is used, that’s not the case with BCC. The other recipients won’t be able to see that someone else has been sent a copy of the email. More info.
Be aware that using CC and BCC an be considered a hostile move in certain situations.
Massive mails should be sent with BCC.
Reply and reply all
If you want to chat like you would in a Whatsapp group, use “reply all”. But this is a work tool, so do not spam too much.
If you want to say something to just one person, use “reply”.
Task
“<“: “less than”; “>”: “more than”; ≥: “greater than or equal to.”; ≤: “less than or equal to.”
Write a short e-mail (<100 words) to your employer with regard to a technical issue. Suggestions:
You need to buy new RAM to your desktop PC because the one you have has intermittent faults.
You are a PCB designer and you want to switch to another provider since the ones in Europe are getting cheaper. Also shipping will take less time.
You want to enable DHCP in the enterprise network since in your recent works you need to add and remove many hosts to the network.
You need a gas extraction system since your next work orders will require soldering.
IT, ICT (ENG) = Information (and Communications) Technology. It is used the same way as “informática”. Wikipedia.
ICT (ENG) ≠ ICT (ESP)
ICT (ESP) = Infraestructuras Comunes de Telecomunicaciones (normativa ICT para viviendas plurifamiliares: Radio, TV, satélite, fibra…)
