What to call your email recipient

With traditional business letters there are well-known conventions for addressing one's recipient. But what about email? What text should you use to start and finish an email? Marian Newell from Newell-Porter (www.newellporter.co.uk) put this question to the ISTC Discussion Group (http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/ISTC_Discussion) in October 2005. These are the results of her informal survey.

Twelve people responded to the question, so the findings here do not have statistical significance, nevertheless, they give useful guidance.

Many people gave opinions on what they would do in their own email messages, but did not have strong opinions on what they read in messages from other people. In cases where people are replying to new contacts, many people mirror the usage of the person who sent the email.

Several people preferred 'Hello' to 'Hi' for business purposes, viewing 'Hi' as too informal, but others regarded 'Hi' as standard in email, as invisible as 'Dear' in a letter. Two people opted for 'Dear' when emailing new contacts, but others expressed concern that using 'Dear' risked making the sender look older or inexperienced with email. Several felt that informality is part of the email culture. Some noted that other European countries are typically more or less formal. One person objected to 'Hi' as American (it has its roots there in the mid-19th century), although another noted that it entered her vocabulary from Denmark not the US.

Many people regarded <first_name> with no greeting word as the safest option when unsure, although a few found this a little stark. One person commented that he finds 'Good Morning' strange in emails that he receives and that he would not use it. Given that one has no idea when people will read their email, it does seem an odd choice.

Several people were not keen on 'Regards' as a closure. 'Thanks' was popular when appropriate and 'Cheers' was used in friendly messages. However, one person had seen 'Cheers' inflame recipients when it was used at the end of a formal notice about disciplinary matters. That underlines that any choice needs to be appropriate, and one person noted that usage from the same person often varies depending on the message content. Many people don't use a closing word if the email has wound down in a way that doesn't seem abrupt. Some had noticed people using unexpected closures like 'Love' and 'Cuddles' in business emails.

One side issue that arose was the difficulty when adopting a formal salutation of knowing which title to use for women. In general, respondents of both genders were not keen on using titles in email. When it came to letters, both women involved in a discussion were happy with full name and no title on the envelope (or in the letter's address block). However, in the salutation, one preferred 'Dear <first_name><second_name>' and the other 'Dear Ms <second_name>'. Both were happy with 'Dear <first_name>', so perhaps this is safest.

In a similar vein, one person noted that when he sends an email to a person with only an initial known, he puts 'For the attention of <initial> <second_name>' and then 'Hello' below that.

One person passed on the conclusions of a thread in a similar vein within the SfEP (www.sfep.org.uk), which considered how to address a foreign author whose academic qualifications you don't know:

'Dear Dr <second_name>' is acceptable to most academics for a first letter or email.
Sign off your initial email or letter in the manner in which you want to be addressed, that is, if you prefer the correspondent to write 'Dear <first_name>', sign your correspondence '<first_name>'.
Leave it to the author to set the tone for any continuing correspondence. If they sign themselves 'Dr <second_name>', then continue to write to 'Dear Dr <second_name>'.

This informal survey shows that there are no definitive rules. As with all other forms of writing, you need to know your audience and write accordingly.