Employing ambiguous language Ambiguous language is the murderer of all written communication. It creates the scope for misunderstanding. If you write something that can have more than one meaning, no matter how well the email recipient knows you and the subject of your content, you run the risk of wasting time and energy to do some extra explaining, or worse. Imagine that your teammate misinterprets your gray instructions and completes an entire project based on your bad writing. Your project will have to be completed twice. You will lose resources and miss deadlines. Also, you will damage your reputation. So, save the ambiguity for poets and make sure your email communications can only be interpreted one way. Forgetting to explain attachments Not only will the word “attach” trigger your email host to remind you to upload attachments in case you forget, it will also give the reader an understanding of what it is they’re about to open. In the future, if the recipient needs to find this email, for any reason, they should be able to use the search feature to do so. If you haven’t explained what it is you’re sending beyond “here’s the file I said I would send,” it will make the search process that much more difficult. So, explain any attachments clearly, and use relevant keywords. Using jargon words Only 21% of communicators keep their language jargon-free. This means that more than ¾ of people are still using industry slang in their emails. So, though it may seem like the norm, you need to take a closer look and pay more attention to your word use. Sure, Dave in the cubicle next to you probably knows what plug-and-play means. But, when someone has to send your email thread to a client, they will have no clue. You will put yourself in the awkward position of having to explain terms and wasting everyone's time in the process. Note that not everyone will know what you’re talking about when you use jargon. You may think this is okay now, for whatever level you’re communicating on, but try to get out of the habit ASAP. Otherwise, you’re going to waste time and energy explaining niche terms to people who have no need to know.
