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How to Write Request Emails

Hello, and welcome to our fourth module on request and apology emails. In our last module, you learned about introduction emails, and how the language you used for those types of emails was rather clear and direct. Over the next two lessons, you’ll learn how to say things more politely, and more sincerely in order to make requests and apologize in a professional way. In this lesson on making requests, we’ll focus on expressions using please and question forms using could and would. You’ll also learn about how to use the expression would you mind or would like.

Let’s start with request emails. In business and overall professional interactions with people, making requests will be one of your top reasons for communicating through email. There are many situations where you would need to make a request. You could be asking for additional information on certain processes, employment opportunities, or even simply asking for directions to their office or factory. Maybe you’re asking them to send you certain files, or documents or perhaps you want to request a meeting with them. Whichever the case, since you are asking them to do something for you, the language you use needs to be respectful and polite.

The easiest way to make your sentences sound polite is by adding the word please.

In America, children learn to use this word from a very early age. And is the most commonly used word when making polite requests. Here are some examples. Please send me your resume.

Please meet me today at 3PM. Please give me directions to your office.

Another way that you can make polite requests is by using the question form with words such as could and would.

Let’s look at the same examples, but this time in a question form.

Could you send me your resume?

Could you meet me today at 3 PM? Would you give me directions to your office?

And if you want to be even more polite, you can add please to these questions. Look carefully at where I put the word please. Could you please send me your resume?

Could you please meet me today at three? Could you please give me the directions to your office?

Where did I put please?

That’s right, it’s right before the verb.

Now let’s look at two more polite expressions that you can use when making requests. These expressions also include the word would. The first one is would you mind. Here are some examples.

Would you mind sending me your resume?

Would you mind meeting me today at 3 PM?

Would you mind giving me the directions to your office?

When you use this expression, notice that it is used with a verb in the I-N-G form. In grammatical terms this is called a gerund.

Another polite expression using would is, would like. Would like is the polite way of saying that you want something. So any sentence you use with want can easily become more polite by switching the word want with would like, let’s look at some examples.

I want to meet you at 3 PM. » I would like to meet you at 3 PM.

I want the directions to your office.

I would like the directions to your office.

Now, let’s try to make this sentence more polite. You have to send this by Friday. What would be the polite versions of this sentence?

If you remember from our first module, I mentioned that you could make up to two requests in one email. How should you write the second request? Well, there are two ways to do this. The first is to just number your requests like this. One, please send your resume. Two, please include three references.

Or you can write your requests within the paragraph without using numbers. Simply write the second request with the word also.

Let’s look at the following examples.

Please send me your resume.

Could you also include three references?

Could you meet me today at 3 PM? I would also like directions to your office.

Notice the location of the word also. Again, it’s right before the verb.

Now that you’ve made your request, how do think we should conclude? That’s right, we need to add our thanks or words of appreciation. If you want to keep things simple, you can just write thank you, or sincere thanks, or I appreciate it.

However, if you want to be more polite in your thank you message, you can add the reason why you’re thankful to the reader. In this case, you just extend the expressions we just looked at like this.

If you would like to know other ways to say thank you, check the resource page for more detailed expressions.

Now, let’s recap. In this lesson we focused on what kind of polite language to use when making requests. We learned how to use expressions like please, could, would, would you mind, and would like. And we learned to use the word also when writing our second request.

Before completing our email text, we learned that we need to add some words of appreciation that started with thank you, or I appreciate. All your email needs now is a closing and your signature. You should now be more confident writing professional emails and requests. I’ll see you in our next lesson on making apologies.