What are the steps of composing an email?

The video tutorial helps you understand how to compose an email message in Gmail.

Table of Contents Show

1. Composing a Subject Line
2. Picking a Salutation
3. Your Message
4. Picking a Valediction
1. Keep the subject line simple
2. Open with a proper greeting
3. Give the purpose of your email
4. Writing the body text
5. Wrapping up your email
6. Signing off
7. Double check everything

If you have a Google account and logged in to your Gmail inbox, you’re ready to send or receive emails. If you want to send an email to someone, you should use the Compose Mail link available inside your Gmail. Apart from using other features, you can also format your message in a number of ways to make it look good to the recipient’s eye.

Here’s how you can compose an email message –

Log in to your Gmail.
To write a new email message, click the Compose Mail link.
Write the recipient’s email address in the To field.
Cc or Bcc the email message by using Add Cc and Bcc functions.
Enter a Subject for the message you want to compose.
Click the Attach a file link to attach a document.
Now, write the body of the message.
Format your text as required using the menu bar above.
Click the Discard button if you don’t wish to send the message.
Or else, click the Send button to shoot your email.

That’s how you can compose a new email message in Gmail. As soon as you hit the Send button, assuming everything else is just right, your email message will be sent in an instant. You’ll also receive this confirmation message – Your message has been sent.

While nobody would deny that email has made communication much quicker and simpler, there is a downside to it being so easy to compose and send a message: informality.

Not that informality is a bad thing. If you’re emailing friends with the latest viral cat video, you can stuff your message with as many LOLs and ROFLs as you like. But if you’re writing an email for work or university, a formal tone is usually better.

Not yet an accepted form of business communication.
(Image: Paulo Ordoveza)

As such, we’ve put together a quick guide to five crucial steps in writing a professional email.

1. Composing a Subject Line

The subject line is the first thing the recipient sees, so it needs to be concise, clear and informative. For instance, if emailing a colleague, you should specify why you’re contacting them in the subject line (e.g. ‘Project Zero – Feedback Required on Sampling’).

This lets the reader know instantly that the email is important and might need a quick response. If all you put in the subject line is ‘HELP! PLZ READ NOW!’, by comparison, they’ll have to guess.

2. Picking a Salutation

You can be less formal if you know the person you’re emailing, but the standard salutation for any professional email is ‘Dear [Recipient’s Name]’. Ideally, you should use either a full name (e.g. ‘Dear Victoria Hufflepuff’) or a preferred honorific (e.g. ‘Dear Ms Hufflepuff’).

If you genuinely can’t find the name of the person you’re emailing, you could use a job title (e.g. ‘Dear Hiring Manager’) or ‘Dear Sir/Madam’.

3. Your Message

What you write here depends on what you’re emailing about, obviously, but there are a few tips you can follow to ensure a professional tone:

If you don’t know the person you’re emailing, make sure to introduce yourself
Be clear and concise, identifying your reason for emailing early on
Be polite, especially if you’re asking for help!
Start a new paragraph for each point you’re making and try not to put too much information in a single message (one or two issues at a time is enough)
Do not, under any circumstances, use TXTSPK or emoji

We wish that last one didn’t need saying, but we’ve received enough emails featuring a bizarre array of smiley faces to know otherwise.

4. Picking a Valediction

As with the salutation, the valediction you pick will depend on how well you know the recipient. Two good general options, however, are ‘Kind regards’ and ‘Best wishes’.

For more formal options, ‘Yours sincerely’ and ‘Yours respectfully’ might be better. If you don’t know the person you’re emailing, moreover, ‘Yours faithfully’ is traditional.

‘Yours faithfully’ is only for very formal situations, though, unless you want to sound like a Victorian gentleman.

Finally, be sure to go back over what you’ve written before sending. Spelling and grammar mistakes seriously detract from the clarity of an email, so time spent proofreading is time well spent.

And that’s it! Get all of the above right and you can rest happy in the knowledge that you’ve just composed a thoroughly professional email. Well done!

Whenever you send a professional email, it's a reflection on who you are both professionally and personally. It doesn’t matter if it’s an email to a potential employer, fellow colleagues, or an outside work connection, you need every email to be perfectly crafted.

A professional email has many different aspects that should be accounted for before sending. Follow our 7 simple steps and you’ll be able to write the perfect professional email every time.

1. Keep the subject line simple

Every well written professional email needs to have an appropriate subject line. In most cases, you’re not using your email to make a pitch, so you don’t need to create a subject line that is puny or eye-catching.Aim to make your subject line straight forward about what you’re asking or looking for. Your subject line should tell the recipient exactly what the email is about.This is especially wise in the workplace to help determine the priority of an email, and when scanning through an email inbox. If the email matter is urgent or needs to be addressed by a certain time, this should also be conveyed in the subject line.If the email is thanking someone for their time, a simple “Thank You” subject line will suffice. Or if you're writing to an employer to inquire about a job posting, the subject line can be something as simple as "Recent Indeed Posting: Marketing Coordinator Position."

A subject line is all about clearly conveying the purpose of your email.

2. Open with a proper greeting

A professional email always starts with a proper greeting. A greeting is an easy step to accidentally skip - especially in this age where texts and emails are so easily exchangeable - but essential to any professional email.

A greeting does not have to be anything overly complicated. It can be as simple as:

Dear [Name],
Hi [Name],
Greetings [Name],
Hello [Name],
Hello Everyone,
Hi All,

There are also a few common greetings you should not use in a professional email. Slang, overly “friendly” or overly “stiff” language must always be avoided. A few examples of greetings to avoid are:

[Misspelled name]
Hey!
To Whom it May Concern
Dear Sir or Madam

Your relationship with the person you’re sending the email to will determine which greeting is most appropriate. It will also suggest what the first line of your professional email should be:

I hope you are well.
I hope you are having a nice week so far.
It is nice to be introduced.

3. Give the purpose of your email

People don’t want to read long emails or sort through mass amounts of text trying to find the intention of your email. State your purpose at the start of your email.

Expand on more than what your subject line said and give the reader a clear idea of what the email is about. A few ways to state the subject of your email are:

I am writing in reference to [subject]
I am writing to inquire about [subject]
I am writing to inform you that [subject]

You want your subject to be clear, but not come across as brusque. Stating your purpose is the first step in starting a successful conversation and dialogue with the other person.

4. Writing the body text

Don’t overwhelm your reader with text. Understand your reader probably doesn’t have time to read along a lengthily email. Respect their time, if the body of your email is too long, they may skim through it or not read it all.

Keep your emails short and to the point, and do not use slang. Make reading your emails easy by breaking text into paragraphs that are two to three sentences long, or use bullet points when necessary.

If you find that the subject you’re writing about requires a longer email, then it may be better to discuss in a meeting. In that case, use your email to set up a meeting instead of trying to explain everything in one long email.

5. Wrapping up your email

At the end of your email, you don’t want to end with an average sentence. You want to end with a sentence that sets up what needs to happen next.

Either try to point your reader in a particular direction or bring the conversation to a natural end. A few good ways to wrap up an email are:

I look forward to speaking with you more.
Please see the attached documents and give me your thoughts.

Let the end of your email guide where the conversation should go next. In most cases, an email won’t be the end to a conversation, but will actually be the beginning.

6. Signing off

When signing off at the end of a professional email, keep it simple and kind. Like other parts of your email, it's best to have your signing off text short and straight forward.

Here are some of the best ways to sign off an email:

Thank you,
Thanks again,
Best,
Best Wishes,
Kind Regards,
Sincerely,
All the best,

Noteworthy: How professionals sign off emails can vary depending on the country where they are based. For example; USA mainly uses “Best” whilst Australia mainly uses “Kind regards”). Double-check to see what your colleagues or peers in that location are using and replicate.

Now that you’ve got your email written out – there’s still one crucial step you need to take before hitting send.

7. Double check everything

Nothing looks more unprofessional than an email full of grammar and spelling mistakes. That’s why it’s so important to give your email a thorough reading before hitting send.

Give your email a few proofreads to make sure everything is spelled correctly and said in a professional manner. Free writing tools like Grammarly are great for catching those misspellings and typos which ruin an otherwise perfect email.

When proofreading, go beyond just grammar and think about how your email looks too.

Stick to traditional fonts that are simple to read and easy on the eyes - like Times New Roman.
Don’t change the color of your text as this often looks unprofessional.
Avoid using unnecessary punctuation as this can often change the tone of your email to angry or overexcited.

Now that your email is written professionally and looks the part you are ready to send.

Whether you’re job searching or already employed, knowing how to write an email is a must. By using our tips you’ll be writing emails that reflect the high-quality professional you truly are.