The email rubric — subject, salutation, recipients

The rubric

Smith takes an email apart into eleven parts — address, timing, subject line, salutation and recipients, opening, body, closing, closing salutation, e-signature, attachments, and the check before sending. R-email — a Memra rubric that mirrors the genre criteria the open sources agree on — turns them into the ten lines the email assessment is marked on: (1) subject line 3–7 words, specific; (2) salutation at the right formality, name spelled correctly; (3) the ask or point in sentence one (buffer only for bad news); (4) body on one topic, only the detail needed to act; (5) closing with action, deadline, response route; (6) courteous sign-off + name + signature block; (7) recipients right (To / CC / BCC); (8) tone matches the reader; (9) error-free; (10) attachment named and attached. Every line is a mark, and every missing part is a mark lost. This lesson takes the three that come before the first sentence.

Subject line — the email's title

The reader triages the inbox by the subject, and searches for the email by it a month later. So it is specific, 3–7 words, and it covers the whole message — which is also why one email has one topic: a subject that covers two topics is a sign the second needs its own email. Times and places go in the body. Three fixes: (blank) → the reader cannot triage it and may never open it → Lakeshore lease quotes: meeting Thursday. "Question" → says nothing; every email is a question → Lease term on the Meridian quote? "Can we move the Thursday 14 November 2 p.m. lease review meeting to another day next week?" → fifteen words and the time, which belongs in the body → Reschedule 14 Nov lease review.

Salutation — the formality ladder

The salutation announces the formality of everything after it (L8.4). Smith's ladder: Dear + full name + colon for a first contact, anyone senior, anyone external — Dear Renée Charbonneau:; Dear / Hello + first name + comma once there is rapport — Dear Priya, to a client you have met four times; Hi + first name for a teammate; and deep in a fast thread the salutation is dropped. Three errors cost the line outright: the name misspelled (copy it from their signature); a guessed honorific — Dear Mrs Charbonneau when you do not know, so use the full name; and Hey to anyone who is not a friend.

Recipients — To, CC, BCC

To is everyone who must act on the email. CC is everyone who must see it but need not act — a manager kept informed, a colleague who will pick up the thread later — and no one else: a CC list of nine is a message to nine people that the sender does not know who the reader is. BCC is for privacy of addresses — a mailing to forty clients who must not see each other's addresses — and not for secretly copying a manager, which the reader will discover on reply-all. Reply-all only when everyone on the thread needs your reply; a reply-all to a distribution list of eighty with "thanks" is the classic breach. And Smith's practical rule: add the recipients last, after the message is finished and checked, so that an accidental keystroke cannot send a half-written draft.

Sort five: Priya (must approve — To); Ngozi Achebe, the Wren partner who wants to be kept informed (CC); the Wren file address (CC); Priya's bookkeeper, whom Priya has asked to see the cost figures (CC, since she need not act — To if the email asks her for a number); the three vendors, if a single message went to all of them about the quote timetable (BCC — they must not see each other).

Fix three more

Subject: "Hi" → Press training dates for January. "hey Priya!!" to the client → Dear Priya,. Reply-all to the vendor's mailing with a question only for the rep → reply to the rep alone.

Type the skeleton

The snippet is the whole email in eight lines. Type it until the subject, the salutation and the signature block are things you cannot leave out.