Email, not the web, is the most-used Internet application by transaction volume. It's also the most misused. Since it's such an important and often overlooked component of our online lives, I'm going to step away from preaching about the web for a moment and focus on simple steps to make your email discussions more effective.


电子邮件，而不是网络，从应用来看是使用的最多的互联网应用，同时也是被误用最多的。由于它是我们在线生活如此重要而又经常被忽略的组件，因此我暂时放下谈论网络，集中讨论一下让您的电子邮件交流更有效的简单方法。

If you grew up like I did, you were taught how to write a letter. You learned how to write business and casualheadings and salutations, state your purpose, make a request, set expectations for a response, and wrap it up with a Very Truly Yours.

如果你像我一样，你从小就会被教导如何写信。你学会了怎样写商务和普通信件的标题、称呼，说明你的目的，提出要求，定出期望的回应，并以一个"Very Truly Yours"的落款结束。

But an email is not a letter, and you're not typing at an IBM Selectric II typewriter. You may look at the days of formal graces in written communication with some sadness, but rest assured that they are as dead as Dillinger. If your purpose is to solicit information or action from another person via email, you must make that clear to them at the earliest possible point in the message.

然而，电子邮件并不等同于普通信件，你不是在用 IBM Selectric II 打字机打字。你可能怀着些许悲伤看着那些书面沟通日子的正式得体，但是剩下的日子证明他们像Dillinger一样死板。如果你的目的是通过电子邮件获取信息或者要求别人做什么，那么你必须在讯息的最开头就向他们传达清楚。

I get hundreds of emails a day, not counting spam. I know I'm not alone. Email overload is a problem, and it will probably only get worse.

不算上垃圾邮件，我每天会收到数百封电子邮件。我知道有很多人像我这样。电子邮件过载是个问题，而且这个问题只会变得越来越糟。

It's tempting for geeks like me to propose some kind of microformat as a solution: begin subjects with these words, format the first line like that. But email is too widely distributed to corral into a any kind of structure now. All we can do is focus on quick, concise, effective communication.

因此像我一样的极客们提出某种微格式作为一种解决办法，这个想法听起来很诱人：采用第一行那样的文字和格式开始讨论主题。但是电子邮件的使用分布非常广泛，目前不可能统一为任何一种结构。我们所能做的就是专注于迅速、简洁、有效的沟通。

People differ in how they manage their inboxes, but attention to a few details can help make your messages more usable for everyone. These are the factors I've identified that will help you get a quick and valid response:

人们管理电子邮件收件箱的方式各不相同，但对一些细节的关注会让你的信息对别人更有用。以下这些是我发现的能够帮助你得到快速而有效的答复的几个因素。

Brevity
简练


It's the soul of wit, you know.
你知道，这是幽默的灵魂。


Short emails rule. When I get an email that's several pages long, I have to make some decisions: do I have time to handle this now? Is it important enough to come back to? Can I pass it on to someone else? If I can't say yes to any of these, I will probably never get back to it.

简短的电子邮件最有效。当我收到一封长达几页的电子邮件，我必须作出决定：我现在是否有时间来处理这封邮件？它是否很重要而必须回过头再来处理？能不能把它发给另外一个人呢？如果我不能对这几个问题作出肯定的回答，我将永远不会再回过头来处理这封邮件。

You may have lots of information to share, but in email you are in a long list of others competing for your recipient's attention. Keeping it brief is a sign of respect, and it's less likely to cause added stress to your reader.

你也许有很多信息要与人分享，但是通过电子邮件，你是在同时与很多人争取你的接收者的注意力。保持邮件的简明扼要是对别人的尊重，也不太可能给你的读者增加压力。

Supporting material or other important info can be attached, but keep it separate from who you are, what your issue is, and what you want from me.

辅助材料或其它重要信息可以附加上去，但是要与这些内容分开：你是谁，你的问题是什么，你想从我这儿得到什么。

If you're passing a thread along, trim what isn't needed. Why make the email look longer than it really is?

如果你正在传递一根线，剪去不需要的部分。为什么要让电子邮件比它实际看起来更长呢？

Context
上下文


If I don't know you by name, tell me how you came to contact me. We talked about mixers at a podcasting meetup. You saw a panel I was on last year. You divorced me and married my best friend from high school. Something I would remember. I don't need or want a resume, but I do need to know where you're coming from.

如果我不知道你的名字，告诉我你是怎样联系到我的。你看到了我去年所在的工作小组。你同我离婚又和我高中时候最好的朋友结婚。类似这样能让我记起的事情。我不需要或者说我不想要一份简历，但是我需要知道你来自哪里。

Getting a lot of responses asking, “What do you mean?” Context is your problem. When you're asking a question, anticipate any missing details that could cause an extended back-and-forth. Each time someone sends you a reply, you've gone to the back of that person's line. Do what you can to make your emails count the first time.

收到很多这样的回复：你指什么？缺少上下文是问题所在。当你在问问题时，预先考虑到所有可能遗漏的细节，以免造成长期的反反复复。每当别人回复你的时候，你就站在了对方思路的线索背后了。尽你所能让你的电子邮件一次奏效。

And for god's sake, have a subject line. One that makes sense. Some of the most important emails I've received didn't have a subject, and they almost fell through as a result. Don't waste that space with words like “Important” or “Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:”. If the topic changes, change the subject line to match it. Remember that on recipients' screens, your subject competes with a large number of others for their attention.

老天，加个标题吧，一个有意义的标题。我收到的一些最重要的邮件甚至都没有标题，因此而差点被错过了。不要用像"重要"或"Re:Re:Re:Re: Re"这样的文字浪费标题的空间。如果邮件中所谈的主题变了，改变标题使其匹配。记住，在邮件接收者的屏幕上，你的标题在同很多其它的标题争抢接收者的注意。

Old-school email users have a tendency to trim everything out of the body of an email except their replies. Don't do this. For example, if you send me an invitation to speak at a conference and I ask what the topic is, you might reply with just the topic, snipping out all the details of the conference. If I've forgotten about your email by the time you reply, this means that I've got to go back through an enormous email archive to find your original message in order to figure out what you're talking about. Even if I remember, it means that I no longer have the details to hand. Don't trim email. Let it run long. It's the 21st century: an email with an extra 10k of old text at the bottom of it isn't going to swamp my mailer (the 20,000 daily spams are doing that very nicely, thank you).

守旧的电子邮件用户有这样一个倾向，在回复邮件时，他们去掉除了回复以外的所有内容。不要这样做。举个例子，如果你给我发送一封邮件，邀请我在一个会议上发言，我问发言的主题是什么，你可能只回复我这个主题，剪去了所有关于这个会议的细节。如果这时我忘记了你之前发给我的邮件，这就意味着我不得不重新翻出大量的电子邮件存档来找到最初的信息，弄明白你说的是什么。即使我还记得那封邮件，我手头上也没有了关于这个会议的详情。所以不要随便剪去邮件内容，让它一直向下延续。现在是二十一世纪，一封底部带有10k字节旧文字的邮件不会淹没你的邮箱的（每天两万封的垃圾邮件正在出色地完成这件事，谢谢）。

Something to act on
需要遵照执行的事情


Make your requests clear.

让你的要求更加清楚明白。

You should set them apart from the rest of the message by paring them down to one sentence, with white space before and after. Make lists with dashes, asterisks, or bullets if you use HTML email. Closed-ended (yes or no, this or that) questions are preferred; open-ended questions can get long and involved, reducing their overall relevancy and the likelihood that you'll get the response you desire.

你应该将他们剥离出来独立成句，前后留出空间，以便与其他信息区分开来。如果你写的是HTML格式的邮件，用破折号、星号和子弹号立出清单。封闭式（是或否，这或那）问题当然更好，开放式问题会让邮件变得很长很混乱，减少了总体的相关性，并且你可能会得到并非你期望的答复。

Don't give people an excuse to misread you. If you've written a request at the end of a long paragraph, or been passive (“it'd be nice if somebody could…”), it's likely to have been missed on the receiver's end. If you sent an email, you have a point. Get to it.

不要给人误读你的理由。如果你在一个很长的段落后面才提出要求，或者很被动（"如果某人能......那将会是非常好的"），那么很有可能在最后被接收者错过。如果你发送一封邮件，你必然有你的目的，抓住它。

Some examples:

一些例子：

Can I call you tomorrow morning at 10am PT?
Here is my contact info for your address book.
Would you send me any links you have where I can read more about x?
Would you forward this to person y?
I need your travel itinerary by end of day.

明天上午10点我能打电话叫你吗？
这是我的联系信息，请记录到你的地址簿。
我想更多地阅读一些关于x的东西，你能发给我你所有的链接吗？
你能将这封邮件转发给y吗？
我需要在今天之内知道你的旅行路线。

Reasonable expectations

合理的期望值

Given that most of us have several current projects to keep up on, it's not very likely that we're be able to spend more than 10 minutes at a time helping someone who is emailing me out of the blue. My ability to draft my famous page-scrolling expositions of a given issue is limited. If I've already written something that covers it, I might just send you a link. Otherwise, if you can frame the question such that a lengthy answer isn't required, you're apt to get a quicker response.

我们中的大部分人都是同时要做好几项工作，因此不太可能一次花上多于10分钟的时间来帮某个向我发送邮件的人解决问题。我起草著名的滚动页面阐述某个问题的能力有限。如果我已经写了一些关于这个问题的东西，我可能只会发送给你链接。如果你能发出一个不需要很长答案的问题，那么你就很容易得到更快的答复。

A deadline
最后期限


There comes a time when the response you seek is no longer useful. If you know when that is, tell your recipient. This can be a good way both to prompt a speedy turnaround, and to let people off the hook in the long term. When someone sees that, for example, you need a proposal in a timeframe they can't make, they will probably bow out, rather than leaving you hanging. Everybody wins. Especially whoever it is you end up choosing in their place.

总会有一个时间期限，过了这个期限之后，你想要的答复将不再有用了。如果你知道这个期限，告诉你的接收者。这是一个不错的方法，它既能促使对方快速回复，长期来看，又能让人摆脱邮件压境的困扰。当对方知道了这一点，比如你需要在一段时间内制定出解决方案，而他们无法完成，他们可能就会直接放弃，而不是让你继续等待。这样对大家都好，不管你最终选择让谁去做。

You can't win them all. If you need to send a single reminder, do so, but if that doesn't do the trick, pick up a phone. If it's not important enough to call the person directly, then let it go.

你不可能让每件事都那么完美。如果你需要向对方发送一个提醒，马上做，如果这样不起作用，给他一个电话。如果事情并不是十分重要，没有必要直接打电话通知对方，那就让它去吧。

Daily reminders suggest to recipients that they're being bossed around, and that's not the best way to manage people, and certainly no way to treat casual contacts. They may be too busy, or away from the computer, or actually working on your last request. If you're forcing the issue, you don't improve your chances of success with that person in the long term.

每天提醒会让接收者觉得他是在被你控制，这不是最佳的管理人的方式，当然更不能用这种方式来对待偶然碰到的联系人。他们有可能太忙了，或者不在电脑前，或者正在处理你的上一个要求。如果你正面临着这样的问题，从长远来看，这将不利于改善你和对方一起成功的机会。