E-mail has become such a quick and easy way to communicate, that many times we forget it should be treated just as professionally as any other correspondence. Keep the following guidelines in mind:

Always include a helpful subject line. A subject line lets people know why you’re contacting them. If you’re replying to or forwarding an email, change the subject line to indicate what your message is about. Many times we’ve replied back and forth so many times that the original subject isn’t relevant anymore. Make yours relevant.

A subject line that states “meeting changed" doesn’t explain anything, especially if someone wants to try to find the e-mail again later. Instead “Operations meeting rescheduled to Nov 12, 9 am" lets recipients know exactly what they need to know before they even open the email. Your recipients will appreciate your being thorough in your subject line.

Personalize your response. Always address your recipient by name. It’s just bad manners to type an e-mail to someone without a greeting. Some exceptions:

When you’re sending the e-mail to several people. In that case, you can use a memo-style such as To: the Order Dept. or if the recipients are mixed, use a newsletter style so that a greeting isn’t necessary. When you’re thanking someone for a reply. In this case, you’ve already greeted the recipient when you asked for the information. A simple “Thanks" when they’ve answered you is sufficient.

And don’t forget to sign the message with your name.

NEVER USE ALL CAPS. It looks like you’re shouting (and in my opinion, too lazy to use the shift key).

Check for errors. You’d think this would go without saying, but many don’t even use the Spell-check feature. Always check for spelling as well as grammatical errors. Sloppy e-mails give the impression that you don’t care about your work.

Protect your recipients’ privacy. Use the BCC (blind carbon copy) feature so that the recipients’ e-mail addresses won’t be visible to everyone receiving the e-mail. This is also helpful when printing out the email — you won’t have all those addresses printed, needlessly taking up space. When you use BCC, you don’t have to place any address in the TO box your recipients will see “undisclosed-recipients" in the TO area. However, you may place your own address there if you like.

Emoticons :) to do or not to do. An email to a higher-up or a customer should never have emoticons (those little smiley faces, etc.). However, including them in an e-mail to a colleague that you consider a friend would be appropriate, even welcome — a smiley face can also soften a negative message. Be careful to not overdo or be too cutesy with them, though.

My pet peeve. Get rid of all those >>>> before your send an email. First, never click on “forward." Instead copy and paste into a new email. Every time an email is forwarded, it adds another > in front of each line. If the email already has carrots, there’s an easy and painless way to get rid of them. Simply copy and paste the email into a Word document. Then use the Find and Replace feature to get rid of them forever: Find > Replace (leave blank). If you’re feeling really adventurous, get rid of all the extra spaces and broken lines before you paste it into an email (but this could take a while).

Following these simple guidelines will help you look polished and professional in all your e-mail correspondence.