Module 2a — Office
Correspondence
and Records
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Subject lines
Many officers receive dozens (or more!) emails every day. As the writer, your subject line is the best opportunity you get to make sure your communication is read.
Email recipients need good subject lines to help them decide on priorities for reading and in order to relocate specific emails if required. The subject line should be fairly brief, as there is limited space for it to appear at the recipient's end. Subject lines that are too long can easily become shortened and incomprehensible. Email programs and settings differ, but lines of approximately eight words are usually all visible.
As the writer, you also need to be aware of the dangers of “spam” - unwanted, unsolicited bulk emails that have become a huge problem for many email users. Of course you are not sending spam to those you communicate with! The challenge is in choosing a subject line that will make that obvious. Often “spammers” use lines like “as per your request” or “something you should see.” Many email users delete such message unread, or set the filters on their emails to exclude them. The same exclusion can happen if you skip a subject line. Aim for substantive subject lines that clearly indicate message content.
If your email is urgent, you should incorporate the word urgent in the heading and use the high priority flag. Other useful words to incorporate into headings are FYI (for your information only, a signal that the recipient does not have to DO anything). The ILO guidelines recommend that you include OFFICIAL, INFORMAL, or PRIVATE in the subject line depending on what type of email you are writing.