1. Don’t send emails when you are angry. Or drunk. Or drunk and angry.
2. Don’t draft an email with a recipient’s email address in the “To” field. You risk accidentally sending an incomplete–and possibly embarrassing–email.
3. Always proofread. Always.
4. Seriously. Always proofread.
5. Always include a greeting, closing, and your name at the bottom of your emails. A pre-populated email “signature” is not enough.
6. Before sending sensitive emails, reread them aloud in an angry voice. This can help you catch potentially (and unintentionally) offensive phrases.
7. Use proper capitalization and punctuation. You are not in kindergarten. Write like an adult.
8. LOL, IMHO, FYI, 2 (instead of “to”), and other abbreviations like this belong in text messages, not emails.
9. If the other party is a customer, manager, or anyone else who has power over you, take care to make sure your emails are polite, respectful, and friendly, even if their emails are not.
10. Did you proofread?