We’ve all been warned time and time again about email etiquette. We all should know by now the basic no, no’s of corporate emails. Don’t type in all UPPER CASE, it implies yelling; Don’t type in all lowercase, it implies laziness; Don’t put something in an email that you wouldn’t want the world to read; Don’t email when you are mad…and the list goes on and on. But how many times have you authored an email that was completely misinterpreted? Studies say it is more times than you know!

Lynn Gaertner-Johnson at the Business Writing Blog touches on the problems with using sarcasm in emails and in her post Email and Your Ego goes on to show how often readers misinterpret emails. She points out how research studies show how consistently writers overestimate their readers ability to distinguish sarcasm from seriousness.

"In one study, writers
estimated that their readers would recognize sarcasm 78% of the time but in fact the true number was 56%.

Email readers consistently overestimate their own ability
to recognize sarcasm. In the study just mentioned, although they were
correct only 56% of the time, they estimated their accuracy at 90%!

In another blog at Easy Street Business Blog  they discuss email misinterpretation and why our "High Tech" communication is not more effective?

  Michael Morris and Jeff Lowenstein are
among the scholars who studied the benefits and dangers of email and other
computer-based interactions. They identified three major problems which are discussed in a recent post on our own Shak and Jill.

They did a comparison between email and phone communications;
Check it out…

So the bottom line seems to be maybe along with our "High Tech" we need a little "High Touch" via the good old fashion telephone line. It just may go a long way for your business relationships.