What are some greetings and sign-offs for emails, focussing on job
applications/ business? I would appreciate a list with explanations,
e.g. "Dear Mr. ..." - used for this or that type of email, "Sincerely
yours" - used under this or that circumstance. Additionaly, some
examples of what not to write would be nice.

Hello,

Good question. Business e-mail etiquette isn't something that is
discussed very often, and practised even less. Here are some resources
I have found to help you write professional business e-mails and some
do's/don'ts and things to stay away from. I've listed general
etiquiette sites first, and then forms to give you examples, and then
some embarassing ordeals that companies have been put through due to
bad e-mail etiquette.


Additional Links:

Business e-mail etiquette:
http://coco.essortment.com/emailetiquette_rtqh.htm

General e-mail etiquette but longer written and more indepth:
http://careerplanning.about.com/library/weekly/aa050401a.htm

Even longer more indepth article on e-mail etiquette:
http://www.emailreplies.com/

Many templates and forms to use for business e-mails:
http://www.smallbizsearchengine.com/library/forms/

Acknowledgement of Application e-mail template:
http://www.insiderreports.com/Letters.ASP_Q_LtrID_E_54

Hundreds of more templates for e-mails dealing with business:
http://www.insiderreports.com/resources/library/searchletters.asp

How to write an unsolicited cover letter (e-mail):
http://www.collegerecruiter.com/pages/articles/article295.htm

Business Press Release Faux Pas (don'ts):
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/fauxpas.htm

Symantec (of Norton fame) big e-mail snafu:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/24502.html


Seach Strategy:

business email etiquette on google:
://www.google.com/search?q=business+email+etiquette

email "faux pas" business on google:
://www.google.com/search?q=email+%22faux+pas%22+business


By following the etiquette links above, and following some of the
forms, I'm sure you'll be able to write professional sounding e-mails
that are pertinent to your business, informative to read, and most
importantly polite/respectful to your recipient.

Thank you for the opportunity to answer your question, if you require
more information, please clarify the question, or if you find this
answer satisfactory, please feel free to rate it. Thank you!

skermit-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by j_philipp-ga on 11 Jun 2002 02:03 PDT

Hello Skermit,

thanks for your links, that's appreciated.
But again: I would appreciate a list with explanations,
e.g. "Dear Mr. ..." - used for this or that type of email, "Sincerely
yours" - used under this or that circumstance.

Let me explain: I'm not a native speaker of english and I don't "feel"
how friendly some of the greetings and sign-offs are, and how
appropriate or inappropriate for business.

So for german, I could easily say:

Sign-offs:
"Hochachtungsvoll" - Very formal, practically old-fashioned
"Mit freundlichen Grüßen" - Friendly and formal
"MfG" - Abbreviation of above, less formal
"Gruß" - Can be used for personal, and also formal (but not highly
formal) emails
"Tschüß" - Very personal

I will look into your links for more complete information, but just
something like the above (for greetings and sign-offs) in english
would be perfect!
Thanks again.

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Request for Answer Clarification by j_philipp-ga on 11 Jun 2002 10:20 PDT

What has been added to the comments was the kind of information I was
after. Skermit, please add to your answer if you have more of this
type.
Thanks.

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Clarification of Answer by skermit-ga on 11 Jun 2002 11:28 PDT

I'm sorry I got confused with the question in hand. I see that you had
your question answered below by one of the nice commentors. Please
clarify if you need more example opening/closings. I thought you
wanted templates and general help writing business directed e-mails.

skermit-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by j_philipp-ga on 11 Jun 2002 11:36 PDT

Skermit,

yes, if there are more openings and closings like the one below I
would definitely like to know them. Thanks.

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Clarification of Answer by skermit-ga on 11 Jun 2002 11:38 PDT

Additional Links:

List of historical letter openers/closers listed by appropriate situation:
http://www.xrefer.com/entry/594696

More openers/closers:
http://www.gp.k12.mi.us/ci/eng/StyleSheet/letters.html


skermit-ga

The final links were perfect. Thanks also to politicalguru-ga for the comments.

As someone living in Berlin, and writing in English, I can try these:

Sincerely will fit here - Very formal, practically old-fashioned 
Best Wishes/Regards - Friendly and formal 
Best - Abbreviation of above, less formal; Can be used for personal,
and also formal (but not highly formal) emails
Bye - Very personal 
 
You can also try "Thank you in advance"; "cheers" (very friendly and
personal).

Dear Mr/Ms so-and-so is the equivalent of "sehr geehrte(r) X"; if it's
a frined you can also use "hi" etc.

Another thing - like there's "aufrichtig" there are old forms that are
hardly used today by normal people.

Thank you Politicalguru. That was exactly what I was after.

If you want the conventions that are used in letter writing on paper,
in Britain we use "yours sincerely" to close a letter written to a
named recipient.  In the case of an unknown recipient, the letter
starts with "Dear Sir/Madam" (or even "To whom it may concern") and
finishes with "yours faithfully".

A recent study showed that some ridiculous percentage (75% or so) of
20-something year-olds in the UK had never written a formal letter on
paper to anyone.