Career Advice Career counselling, advice and guidance

Joanne Swanwick

Joanne works as a Teacher of English at the British Council in Hong Kong. She has 20 years’ experience in teaching Adults, specialising in exam preparation. She has a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature, and a diploma in English language teaching.

If you’d like to learn more about writing effective emails, join the Professional Business Skills courses at the British Council in Hong Kong. The ‘Better Emails’ module teaches you how to plan, organise, write and edit your emails in order to communicate more effectively and enhance productivity at work. For more information, go to https://www.britishcouncil.hk/en/english/courses-adults/professional-business-skills

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Using the correct tone in formal emails (Part 2)

In part 1 last week, we explored what tone is and why it matters in our formal email correspondence. In this section, we focus on language which will help you to make the right impression on your reader. Play it safe Using formal style, showing respect, is always the right choice in a professional context. Use the salutations below to open your email and greet your reader appropriately. Known reader: ...

Using the correct tone in formal emails (Part 1)

We’ve all been there. You’re writing an email to a client or colleague. Before you hit send, you quickly skim your email for errors. Grammar, spelling and punctuation? Everything looks fine. You click send, confident of a job well done. Later, you receive a reply and something isn’t quite right. Your usually cordial colleague seems oddly distant. Your long-term client’s response to your enquiry is terse. Frankly, it’s all a bit awkward. What could have gone wrong? ...