Writing Like a Pro – 10 Grammar Tips for Business Emails

Professional emails should never be written casually. Avoid using words that can appear anxious or annoyed and don’t use sarcasm; furthermore, refrain from including adjectives which can muddy your message and sound too emotional.

Before sending out an email, take time to run through a spelling and grammar check – especially if it will only be read by yourself. Consider an app such as Grammarly that acts as an editor and proofreader virtual editor/proofreader service.

1. Spell Check

Even if you didn’t win the spelling bee as a child and possess a solid understanding of grammar rules, sending emails that are clear can still be challenging. No matter how well-intentioned our intentions might be, mistakes happen and misspelled words can have serious repercussions for the recipient of your email message.

Set your email to automatically check spelling when composing messages by selecting Tools > Use automatic spell checking while writing from the mail window menu. This option will highlight misspelled words in red; however, please be aware that it won’t catch all errors; proofreading may still be necessary for optimal performance.

2. Punctuation

Punctuation may not be as prominent a consideration in business email communications as language usage or vocabulary choices are, but punctuation errors still matter and can have serious repercussions.

English grammar contains fourteen punctuation marks that should be utilized correctly: period/full stop, question mark, exclamation point, question mark again, exclamation point again, question mark again and exclamation point once. These punctuation marks include period/full stop, question mark again exclamation point once, comma semicolon dash hyphen parentheses apostrophe quotation marks etc.

Punctuation marks are invaluable tools in our writing arsenal; they enable us to structure it logically for readers while showing where and when to pause, add emotion or indicate when something is being quoted from outside sources.

3. Grammar

Grammatical errors can create miscommunication or confusion in business documents, for instance by misplacing a comma which could alter its meaning completely and change how a sentence or paragraph reads.

Grammar refers to a set of rules governing the usage and formation of words, phrases, clauses and sentences within any given language. It’s one subfield of linguistics – the study of languages.

Many people perceive grammar as an objective set of rules about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable language (also referred to as prescriptive grammar), yet linguists do not study grammar this way.

4. Sentences

Sentences are the largest grammatical units capable of conveying complete thoughts. A sentence typically consists of a subject and predicate clauses, along with any required independent clauses to complete its meaning as a full sentence:

Email subject lines set the stage for what lies within. Choosing phrases suitable for business use will allow you to craft messages that are professional and straightforward.

5. Vocabulary

A person’s vocabulary refers to all the words they know and use in everyday language and speech, technical fields or other subjects. Sometimes “vocabulary” can also refer to “wordstock,” “lexicon,” or “lens.”

Writing business emails requires expanding your vocabulary, which can greatly improve the clarity of your messages. But learning new words only becomes worthwhile if they can be remembered and applied appropriately; this includes avoiding all-caps sentences, excessive exclamation points or slang jargon. Instead, practice applying your newfound words in low-risk situations first before using them at scale.

6. Style

Business emails must be professional but friendly at the same time, with natural-sounding language that avoids overusing formal vocabulary or phrases like “should have” or “would have”.

Stay away from negative phrases that sound tense or anxious and avoid using adjectives with too much emotion such as extremely, very and highly.

Choose a professional font and keep paragraphs short; remember that people scan emails quickly, making shorter paragraphs easier for readers. Finally, find your personal touch by using positive, person-oriented language that caters specifically to your audience’s needs.

7. Grammar Check

Grammar Check, like the other tools featured here, scans text for grammar-related mistakes and provides suggestions to correct them, making it simple and effortless to improve writing and enhance professionalism in business emails.

This tool provides comprehensive suggestions, from comma splices to style gaffs. It even recognizes overused phrases and idioms so you can avoid overusing the same words again and again. Furthermore, this tool will highlight inconsistencies in spelling and capitalization as well as find verb conjugation errors and tense issues for you.

8. Emojis

Emojis add a bit of color and personality to emails, but should only be used sparingly in business environments as they may be misinterpreted or come off as unprofessional. Furthermore, an emoji may have multiple interpretations depending on its context of use.

Before deciding to use emojis in marketing emails, take into account your company’s culture and level of formality when making this decision. Emoji overuse can trigger spam filters which negatively impact email deliverability and performance metrics – use data-backed decisions when incorporating emojis in email campaigns – your subscribers will thank you!

9. Abbreviations

Abbreviations are an efficient and quick way to communicate. There are various kinds of abbreviations:

Contractions consist of letters that have been left out, like can’t or you’re. Acronyms utilize the initial letter from each word in a phrase to form one new word. Abbreviations and acronyms can both be written with or without periods, although including periods will make reading them much simpler and some style guides recommend doing it this way for better readability.

10. Style

We have all received emails that come across as overexcited or even alarming despite their author’s best intentions, often due to overly positive or negative word choices, excessive exclamation points or ellipses and the like.

Keep the tone in your email professional and appropriate to the status, position, or company of its recipient. Use concise language in order to eliminate unnecessary words and avoid having to send follow-up emails about important details that were left out in the initial communication. Vary sentence length and paragraph length to make your email more interesting and accessible for readers.