How to Write Diplomatic Emails: My tips for writing effective business emails

hey everyone tarah here from our key english do struggle sometimes with writing diplomatic emails the people sometimes tell you that you come across as too direct well in today's video I'm going to share my top 5 tips for writing diplomatic and professional emails but before we get started don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you can be informed when I make more videos just like this one what types of occasions call for diplomatic emails we know those times where you have to tell somebody you're not happy with the work that they're doing you need to have those uncomfortable conversations where you need to express disappointment or you really need to assert your opinion without upsetting the other person while also maintaining a good working professional relationship with this person or people now you can tell me in the comments any other times that you've had to write a diplomatic email I'd love to hear from you about some of the things that you find challenging but firstly let's find out what diplomatic language is well diplomatic language is both formal and polite and it also strives to ensure that there are no misunderstandings now we can't always avoid misunderstandings but the more diplomatic language we use the more likely we are to avoid misunderstandings diplomatic language also relays an important message without making the recipient feel bad because the last thing you want to do is to make the recipient feel defensive even when you need to relay an important message that might be uncomfortable will might be expressing dissatisfaction with the work that somebody has done there is still a way to use diplomatic language in order to express that now when we use diplomatic language we use modal verbs now this includes examples such as may I and when you use my you can only use the pronoun I so you wouldn't say for example may you that's when you would use the modal verbs for example could and would now these are formal examples of using a modal verb you could also use can or will and they're more informal so for the purpose of writing an email it's better to use may could and would to sound more formal for example my tip number one for writing diplomatic language is to set the diplomatic tone upfront when you're sending an email because the goal is to put the recipient at ease even if you need to give them a message that might not necessarily be comfortable or you have to tell them something that you know they may react quite negatively to for example I know this project has been demanding so I asked Ben to assist with some of the design drafting could you organise a time to meet with him and explain the project at the start of next week so in this example we can see that at the start the writer has used a very empathetic tone to set the scene and to make the reader feel as though they understand the situation so even though this writer might be perhaps not happy with the work this person is doing they're trying to sound empathetic by saying I know this project has been demanding and that is why I've asked Ben to assist with some of the design drafting so it makes the recipient perhaps not feel so defensive now the use of the word the modal verb could makes it sound very polite tip number two keep it professional and avoid talking about feelings the worst thing you can do when you're trying to be diplomatic is to express very strong feelings very strong negative feelings so try web possible to avoid talking about your feelings for example in an email instead of saying I'm not at all happy with the work you've done and it needs a rectifying I'm beyond disappointed so instead of expressing negative feelings you can still say exactly the same things without expressing personal feelings so instead try something like this the standard of work is not as expected could we discuss how you will rectify it so this second example still sounds polite but it's also very direct it's telling the person that the standard of work is not as expected without using negative feelings so it keeps it very professional now tip number three is to choose your words wisely now the reason I say this is also because you don't know who your email will go to once you send it you have no control over where that email can go because anyone can forward the email to somebody else anyone could read it so you need to make sure that you choose your words wisely if you want to send an email to your team about the importance of meeting a particular deadline instead of being negative and saying I thought that we were going to meet this deadline I'm really disappointed I had the expectation that this was going to be done you could write something like this that's much more positive so it has been my understanding that we can achieve this deadline as I'm determined to maintain a strong relationship with this client so firstly the writer has said that what they understood would happen so it has been my understanding that we can achieve this deadline and why they had that understanding and why it's important because they want to maintain a strong relationship with this client so that is another way of being more diplomatic when you're writing an email and putting it in the positive in a positive light tip number four is to be direct specific and concise because well to be honest no one really wants to read a long email you also need to try and put the point of your email the goal of your email in the first few sentences because it can become lost if you write it at the end and people don't know what to do and then sometimes people won't necessarily do what you want them to do so let's have a look at an example hi David I hope you're well I'm organizing the agenda for tomorrow's meeting before our workshop tomorrow could you please complete the following review the attached document follow up with the engineer write down any other suggestions to bring to the meeting I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow kind regards Tara so in this email I've started off by saying I hope you're well so I'm acknowledging the route the reader of this email and I'm also trying to set the diplomatic tone upfront by telling the person very directly what the purpose of this email is for example I'm organizing the agenda for tomorrow's meeting so already David knows what the point of the email is now I'm becoming more specific by saying that what I want him to do before our workshop so I'm saying before our workshop tomorrow could you please complete the following and again I've used the modal verb could so that I can sound polite and I've given him very specific directions the use of dot points means it's really easy for David to find all the tasks that he needs to do this email is also very concise it's not long David can see very quickly what he needs to do and he knows how to prepare for the meeting tomorrow and finally we close the email with a polite goodbye by saying I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow it's a very positive way of making David maybe look forward to a meeting maybe it's not necessarily going to be a very positive meeting but we're putting it in a positive light tip number five is to try a Graham Lee's tone detector now the time detector with grammarly is a little add-on and I'm going to show you how to use it shortly with the tone detector and I can be really confident that I'm hitting the right tone when I'm writing my emails but also I'm getting my message across to the audience really clearly using gramley effectively is something that I help my students with and how to use it so that they can get the most out of the tool when English is your second language it's not always very obvious as to how you need to use Graham Lee to make the changes so let's go and have a look at my email to see how I use the tone detector when I'm writing my emails okay so here we are in my email I put my email to David into my email account and as you can see down here I have this grammerly extension which allows me to have a look at the corrections that I need to make in my email and I'm going to show you how to add that to your computer in a moment so when you click down here Emily gives you suggestions so when we click on here it's saying oh I need to put a full-stop at the end of my email I'm going to make that change so I go back to my email and then the great thing about e the grammerly extension is it has this tone detector now when you're writing a diplomatic email what you really want for it to be is to be formal and in my case one of the goals that I want to have with my emails is I want them to be both optimistic and friendly so up here you'll see it gives you the intensity of the formality of the email so it's very formal which is good and then it's also has a slight intensity of optimism so it's optimistic and it's also a friendly as well now every email that I write I check my tone because I want to make sure that my message is coming across with the right tone I find this really useful when I want to particularly when I need to send a challenging email to somebody where I need to be diplomatic I always want it to be formal optimistic and friendly despite what the email is about now if you want to add the Grambling extension to your Chrome you can do so very easily so you go here into the Google the Chrome Web Store or you can do it from grammarly so if we go to gramma Lee and I go into my account here you can see over here there is a menu item for apps now you can install gramley for your computer so I've installed it for my Mac and you can also install grammerly for Chrome now there's also another really excellent add-on which I've added to my phone so every time I rice an email from my phone or I write anything on my phone I have the option to use the grammerly keyboard so it's already installed but if you click on here gramley for Chrome you can add it here now the other way which I just showed you before is to go to the Chrome Web Store and if you just type in here you type in grammarly it will come up with this extension here and it should have a button on the side which has add to Chrome now I already have it added up here so here when you click on here and you've got some form of application where you need to use it for writing you will see these menu options now I have a premium account with gramley which means that I can use it with lots of different applications I can use it with lots of different writing so I can use it for mail by clicking and turning it on so you can also change the type of English that you want to use so obviously I write in Australian English so I use it for that one you can change it to American or British or Canadian so that's how I use the grammerly application and the tone detector now I want to talk about five more things that I think are important when you're writing a Nima's to remember when you write an email are so important one don't just get to the point without acknowledging the other person because it can come across as a rude for example I have so many examples in my inbox of people that have written me emails without even acknowledging me or saying I hope that you're well or giving me some form of hello before asking me what to do sometimes that can come across as really rude even though they may not have meant for it to come across like that make sure you always acknowledge the other person number two remember that not everyone is going to read your email from start to finish so make sure that you include what you need to say or the important things at the beginning of your email because the person reading it will not find it what you really want them to do is to be able to find it easily and that's why in a lot of my emails I try and use dot points so that it's really clear number three once the email is sent it's permanent and you cannot erase it so it can also be used in legal proceedings so make sure you choose your words wisely number four proofread use grammarly if you need to proofread it's really easy and it doesn't take much extra time now if English is your second language and sometimes you rely on getting other people to read of your emails but you want to start taking it on board yourself and doing it yourself I suggest that you use both Google Translate and Graham elite together but at the same time it doesn't always translate correctly so the best chance you're going to give yourself if you don't have anyone to help you is to use both Google Translate and Graham elite together together they're much more powerful than just using them on their own and when you proofread it means that you're showing to the other person that you are professional and that you take the time to consider what you're writing the amount of times that I've received emails from even people who have English as their first language and there is no proofreading and sometimes that can change the meaning of your email even and then you have to send emails backwards and forwards trying to clear up the misunderstanding so always proofread your emails and the last one number five don't apologize say thank you instead for example don't say sorry it took me so long to reply instead say thank you for being so patient and waiting for my reply it's much nicer to put it into the positive and say thank you to the other person rather than saying sorry I hope you found these tips useful you can head over to my website by clicking on the link in this video to read more about how to write diplomatic emails and other English tips that I have for architecture professionals before you go don't forget to subscribe I'll see you next time

Channel: Tara Cull - ArchiEnglish

Views: 3,431

Keywords: business english, writing emails, email

Id: bY5MrBF-WmA

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020