Issue #2

After reading the article I think e-mail is a good form of communication when written appropriately. If you are writing a formal email without inserting too many personal opinions there will not be different ways of interpreting the e-mail. However, if the e-mail has a great deal of personality and opinions, the reader may misinterpret your intended tone. Perhaps in this case you could call the person versus e-mailing them. I agree with Nicholas Epley’s statement, “people often think the tone or emotion in their message is obvious because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write.” When you are writing the e-mail you hear what you want to say, but this does not mean that the recipient reads the message that same way.

Leahy made a good point that “those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current moods, stereotypes, and expectations.” However, the writer isn’t “good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s perspective.” The ‘audience centered’ approach is more challenging during e-mailing because you aren’t face-to-face. When you are having a face-to-face conversation you can focus the conversation on the audience while reading their emotions to know how to continue the conversation. To ensure the audience correctly interprets your e-mail there are few steps you can take. Use as few words as possible; by eliminating unnecessary word the message becomes concise. Be clear with details; don’t make the reader guess important details of the e-mail. Most important of all, read the e-mail several times to ensure the reader will correctly decode the message.