Emergent scholarship

Course Lessons

Writing email

10 min read

Lesson overview

Objective: Write better emails

Summary: What was once a tool for efficient communication has morphed into a constant stream of interruptions that fragments our attention and erodes our mental head space. By treating email as a deliberate, structured form of writing, we can reclaim our cognitive bandwidth. Writing better emails is about creating structure in an unstructured medium, where every clear email you write helps maintain the collective head space needed for high-value academic work.

Key habits:

  • Write subject lines that are searchable and actionable: Make it easy for recipients to understand what’s needed at a glance
  • Put required actions in the first paragraph: State clearly what you need and by when
  • Break complex messages into numbered points: Enable recipients to respond to each point individually
  • Delete unnecessary information: Keep messages as short as possible while remaining complete
  • Match your writing time to recipient reading time: Don’t spend more time writing than they’ll spend reading

Introduction

The unstructured nature of email means that you can use it to write just about anything, which is what most people do. The technical protocol for email defines how messages are sent, transferred, and retrieved, but not how the information within the messages is structured. The sender, recipient/s, date, and time are about all that are explicitly defined; everything else is unstructured information. This open-ended nature of email means that it is very flexible; you can use email to make a request, write a poem, a shopping list, or a short story. But this flexibility is why email has a variable signal-to-noise ratio; it can be hard to know if the information in an email is useful and often, what you should do with it.

five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses, regardless of recipient or subject, will be five sentences or less. It’s that simple.

http://www.five.sentenc.es

Email is a writing genre

Email is more than just a digital message—it’s a distinct form of writing with its own unique conventions and expectations. Unlike formal letters or academic papers, email exists in a fluid space between conversation and documentation, requiring a nuanced approach to communication.

Understanding the purpose of your email fundamentally shapes how you write it. Each email is a distinct form of communication with its own objectives—whether you’re providing instructions, sharing information, requesting details, apologising, congratulating, or expressing gratitude. The intent behind your message determines its structure, tone, and potential effectiveness.

Use the subject line to convey relevant information to the recipient. You could even add an indicator of urgency and deadline so that the recipient - after reading the email once - can act on the subject line alone, without needing to open the email. The information you include in your subject line should be searchable and scannable (there is more detail on this in the activity below).

The first few sentences in the message body should let the recipient know what the email is about, and ideally, what you expect from them.

Assume that only the top 5 lines of any email will be read; put anything critical in those lines.

Split the message content into discrete points so that recipients can respond to each point individually.

Keep the main message body as short as possible. Read through the message and remove anything that is extraneous; what is the least amount of information the recipient needs in order to act?

When responding to an email that’s been sent to several people, use ‘Reply All’. Then, after writing the email, go through the list of recipients and remove those who don’t need to be included.

When responding to an email that includes multiple threads, consider splitting your response into multiple emails so that each thread can be processed independently.

Email can be a significant source of stress and cognitive load for academics, constantly pulling our attention away from deep, meaningful work. By implementing these structured approaches to email writing, you’re not just being more efficient - you’re actively creating mental space for yourself and your colleagues.

Email practices in action

Let’s look at a few common academic scenarios where writing structured emails can create more head space. Remember that the goal isn’t just efficiency – it’s about creating an email culture that respects everyone’s mental bandwidth and preserves energy for meaningful academic work.

In addition, use the boundary-setting response template (see right panel) to help maintain productive boundaries while preserving professional relationships. It includes ready-to-use responses for managing expectations around your email preferences. Each response models clear, kind communication that protects your time while maintaining collegiality.

Download the template

Pause and reflect

Because the norms around email use are mediated by the culture of each institution, you may find that some adaptation of the process above will be necessary. You may also find that you’re spending a lot of time crafting the ‘perfect’ email. In this case, it may be useful to reflect on how much time your intended recipient is likely to spend on the message, which may give you an idea of how much time to spend writing it.

Before sending, read through your message and ask if the tone is polite. Short messages that are to the point can sometimes come across as abrupt or even rude. Some people use email to move technical information around, and prefer that emails avoid a conversational tone, while others enjoy adding emojis and personal touches. It’s important that your colleagues understand which camp you fall into, so that expectations around communication can be managed.

Activity

Key takeaways

  • Email is its own genre of writing with specific structural needs: Email isn’t just an open canvas for any type of message. While flexible, it works best when you approach it as a distinct form of communication with its own conventions and best practices.

  • The subject line is crucial for recipient action: A well-crafted subject line should function like a “tweet-able” version of your message - searchable, scannable, and containing enough information for the recipient to understand what action is needed without opening the email.

  • Keep messages focused and structured for easy processing: Break content into discrete points that can be addressed individually, remove any extraneous information, and put action items at the beginning. The goal is to help recipients quickly understand what they need to do and respond efficiently.

Resources

  • Newport, C. (2016). Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world. Grand Central Publishing.
  • Might, M. (n.d.). How to send and reply to email. Matt Might blog.

Graph View