Email Etiquette: Best Practices for Email Writing
Email certainly is a useful tool. For private users, it’s a way to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Email at this level is often informal, uses emoticons 🙂 and slang, and in many ways resembles casual, conversational communication. At the company or agency level, email allows professionals to solve problems, conduct business, collaborate, and keep in touch in a manner sometimes more convenient than phone calls, faxes, and in-person contact.
Business people should not confuse the two uses. Writing and content appropriate for personal emails may not be appropriate for corporate emails. This article focuses on the appropriate uses […]
Best Email Writing Courses Teaching Professional Email Skills
Writing Clear, Effective Email Course–Self-Study (BWC35)
- Business email writing course for self-motivated learners who don’t want instructor coaching and training
- Email writing training teaching email writing that has impact
- Dozens of interactive exercises on email writing training
- Business email course with many examples of effective business emails
- Online, informative, easy-to-read lessons in writing professional email
- Lessons in the email writing course from first draft to final draft
- Tuition $69
See the syllabus
Syllabus: BWC35 Writing Clear, Effective Email Course (self-study)
The Writing Clear, Effective Email course will teach you how to write clear, professional emails. The email-writing […]
Guidelines to Help You Identify and Fix Email Writing Errors
You want your email writing to be as correct as you can make it for three reasons:
If you send out email writing that contains errors, your team members, managers, clients, and vendors may believe you’re uneducated, unintelligent, careless, or incompetent.
This email writing training will teach you to proofread email writing effectively.
Writing Email Guideline […]
Email Writing Tests You May Freely Use
You may use any of the following email writing tests or have your staff use them. The Business Writing Center also does a free evaluation of a business writing sample to help you decide on the best courses for you or your staff.
The email writing tests include tests in confusing word pairs, the 25 most commonly misspelled words, spelling California cities, general spelling, active and passive voice, subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, commas, semicolons, colons, dashes, apostrophes, abbreviations, and other business writing rules.
Writing Clear Numbered Lists and Bulleted Lists in Email Writing
Numbered lists and bulleted lists in email writing help readers see and understand the list items easily. When lists are embedded in paragraphs, the items are jumbled together in a mass of words.
However, email writing that does not have a recognizable set of items is clearer when the writing is in paragraphs. This explanation will help you decide when to put your email writing into bulleted or numbered lists and when to keep email writing in paragraphs. Follow these three steps:
- While you are writing email, make a name for each section of the email.
- Decide […]
Write Strong, Active Voice Sentences
This article will teach you how to write strong, active sentences by changing passive voice sentences to active voice. Active voice makes writing clearer and stronger because the writer includes the actor before the action.
Take the Active Voice and Passive Voice Pre-test
Definition of active voice
English verbs have two voices: active voice and passive voice.
In active voice, the person acting is clear: “The manager wrote the report yesterday.” The person acting is the manager.
In passive voice, the person acting isn’t specified: “The […]
10 Highest Ranked Online Business Writing Courses
Enrollments in the online business writing courses are the strongest indicator of which online writing courses are evaluated well by graduates. These are the 10 highest ranked online writing courses from the 45 Business Writing Center courses.
Does Business Vocabulary Sound More Intelligent?
Much business writing includes difficult or archaic business vocabulary and phrases people do not use in everyday speaking, such as “cognizant” instead of “aware,” “initiate” instead of “begin,” and “endeavor” instead of “try.” Some writers feel business writing with difficult or archaic words is more businesslike and shows the writer’s intelligence. Using common, everyday words […]
What Is the Best Way to Learn Business Grammar?
Researchers studying methods of training writers know the most successful way to teach grammar. It was stated by the National Council of Teachers of English in a position statement:

Writing Coaching by Senior Instructor Dr. Robert Hogan
Dr. Robert Hogan teaches the coaching, tutoring, and individualized business writing courses. Dr. Hogan has been training writers for 40 years in universities, colleges of business, consulting companies, and professional writing companies. He has been been a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County College, and Illinois State University College of Business. He was manager of communications in a telephone billing company and owner of a company writing documents on contract for government agencies and corporations.

Corporate and Government Training
Corporate discounts are available. Send an email to the Business Writing Center for more information: Email…
Government agencies and companies may purchase courses at the end of the fiscal year and defer registration of individuals in the courses for up to 12 months. Request information…
Dr. Hogan delivers workshops at company sites in general business writing, writing email, business report writing, writing letters, and principles of usage (grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentences, and word usage). More…

6,600 Clients Worldwide
Companies – 5,768
Nonprofit organizations – 495
Military/government – 234
Colleges/universities – 143
See a sample list of the most recent 1,000 companies and agencies.

Awards and Recognition
The Business Writing Center has been evaluated and has received awards or recognition from a number of organizations and media:
- U.S. General Services Administration
- Dun& Bradstreet
- Department of Defense
- National Association of Legal Assistants
- HR-Wire
- Florida Department of Health
- Investor’s Business Daily
- TechRepublic