When our elementary school teachers started us on writing essays or book reports, one of the most important elements we learned about was the title. The title is meant to tell the reader what your essay is about. From the emails I receive, I am wondering if there was a shortage of red pencils everywhere else in the country because these subject lines (or titles) suck. I can only think that they were never taught how to write a proper title and that is why their subject lines tend to appear as if they were written by illiterates.
Subject line abuse has so many different forms, I decided to make a list for this post.
1. No subject line. What more do I need to say? The only thing I can think of is that this is actually a strategy. The sender thinks the recipient will receive the subject line-less email and think, "Oooh! A surprise problem! It's just like Let's Make a Deal! I'm going to open that one first!" Guess what? If you didn't take the time to think of a couple of words that describe the content of the email, I can't see why I'm going to look at it first.
2. Entire message is in the subject line. Yeah... And I'm not saying just a two word message. I've received emails that have two or three sentence subject lines with no body. Wtf? First, it's messy to read. Second, it makes that email three or four lines high in my inbox which pushes other conversations out of my sight. This is not a text message. It's an email. Act like you've used email before.
3. The subject is in all caps. Isn't the most basic of all email etiquette knowledge? ALL CAPS MEANS YOU'RE SHOUTING AT ME. Because you are not walking behind me in the hallway and need to get my attention before I go into another room, you don't need to effing yell at me. I brought this issue up to the supervisor of a person who always sent her emails that way. He made the excuse, "Well, she has her caps lock on for another program she uses a lot. I'm sure that's why she does it." I responded with, "Then why isn't the body of her email in caps?" He didn't have an answer. He also hasn't corrected her. I guess he doesn't care how she's representing his company.
4. The subject is 'Question'. This is only minimally better than no subject line. If you are in business and writing someone an email, it's unlikely you are writing to say, "I just wanted to tell you that you're awesome." You have a question or a need. I don't believe you aren't creative. I just think you're lazy. That's not fair, the lazier person just uses the question mark.
5. The subject line says "call me". Uhm. This is sorta like #2. I decided to give it's own listing because it's a combo of #2 on this list and the "Urgent" flag. You need to talk with me. How is it you cannot pick up the phone? If you are afraid you are interrupting a meeting, you needn't worry! I won't pick up the phone!
I'm not asking for the first sentence of a great novel. I don't need to be intrigued by what is within the email. I just need to have an idea before I open it up. That's all. Not much to ask.
What kinds of subject line irritations do you experience?
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