# How do you use ChatGPT to write a professional email?

Date: 2022-12-19 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/use-chatgpt-write-professional-email/

**Answer:** Give ChatGPT your rough notes, the reader, the purpose, and clear limits on tone and length, and ask for a draft. Then edit that draft yourself, checking every fact and name, before anything is sent.

Email is one of the most practical things to try with ChatGPT, the free research preview OpenAI released on November 30. Many people know what they want to say but lose twenty minutes choosing the words, the order and the tone. ChatGPT is good at exactly that part: turning scattered points into tidy paragraphs. One of the samples in OpenAI's launch post is this very task, rewriting a casual note to a neighbor in a more formal style.

What it cannot do is know the facts of your situation, your relationship with the reader, or what you are willing to promise. Those come from you. The best results come from treating it as a drafting assistant: you supply the substance and the limits, it supplies a first version, and you finish it.

## What to put in the prompt

A good email prompt has five parts. OpenAI's guide to writing prompts for its models makes the same general point: be specific about the context, the outcome, the length, the format and the style, and replace vague wording with precise numbers.

- **The reader.** Who they are and how well you know them: a client you have met once, your manager, a supplier.
- **The goal.** What should the reader do or know after reading? Approve, reply by a date, accept an apology.
- **Your notes.** The facts, in any order, even in fragments.
- **Tone.** Pick two or three words: warm and direct, formal and brief, apologetic but confident.
- **Length and format.** "Under 150 words, three short paragraphs, a subject line" works far better than "keep it short".

## A worked example: a delayed delivery

Here are the raw notes of someone who runs a small print shop and has to tell a client their order will be late:

```prompt
Write a professional email from me to a client.

Reader: Ms. Diane Roy, events manager at a conference center. We have worked together twice before.
Goal: tell her the 500 programs for her January 12 event will arrive January 9, not January 5, and keep her trust.
My notes: paper supplier delayed shipment. Printing itself is ready. I can offer free delivery to the venue. I can send a digital proof on January 3. Sorry for the change.
Tone: warm, direct, no groveling.
Format: a subject line, then under 140 words in three short paragraphs. End with one clear question she can answer yes or no.
```

The line about ending with a yes-or-no question matters more than it looks. It makes the email easy to answer, and it stops the model from closing with a generic "Please do not hesitate to contact me."

OpenAI notes that ChatGPT tends to be wordy and to repeat certain phrases. If the draft is padded, ask for a revision in plain terms rather than starting over:

```prompt
Good. Now cut it to under 100 words, remove "I hope this email finds you well", and put the new date in the first sentence.
```

Because ChatGPT keeps the conversation in view, it revises the same email instead of writing a new one. Two or three short rounds like this usually get you to a draft worth editing.

## The personal edit

Before you send anything, read the draft as the recipient would and check four things:

1. **Facts.** Dates, names, quantities and prices must match your notes exactly. The model can change a detail without telling you.
2. **Promises.** Make sure it has not added an offer you did not make, such as a discount or a guarantee.
3. **Tone.** Would you say these sentences out loud to this person? If not, change them.
4. **Privacy.** Think about what you pasted in. OpenAI's terms of use, updated December 13, say it may use the content people submit to improve its services. Leave out account numbers, health details and anything confidential; use placeholders like [client name] and fill them in afterward.

The same terms say you are responsible for the content, input and output alike. In practice, that means the email is yours once you send it, whoever wrote the first draft.

> **Try it:** Find an email you have been putting off. Write your notes as fragments, then use the five-part prompt above with a word limit and a closing question. Ask for one revision, then make your own edit and compare the final version with the first draft.

## How do you make it sound like you?

Show it how you write. Paste two or three short emails you have already sent (with names and private details removed) and say: "Here are examples of my writing. Match their sentence length, level of formality and the way I open and close." Examples carry style far better than adjectives do. "Friendly" means something different to every writer; a real sample does not.

You can also describe your habits directly: "I use first names, short sentences, no exclamation marks, and I sign off with 'Thanks,' and my first name." Keep a short note like this somewhere handy so you can paste it into any new conversation, since ChatGPT does not remember you from one chat to the next.

Finally, keep the last pass for yourself. Swap any phrase you would never use for one you would, add the detail only you know ("Congratulations again on the November gala"), and cut anything that sounds like a template. A draft from ChatGPT is a fast start; the parts that sound like you are usually the edits you make at the end.

## Sources

- ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
- Best practices for prompt engineering with OpenAI API: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6654000-best-practices-for-prompt-engineering-with-openai-api
- Terms of Use (last modified December 13, 2022): https://openai.com/terms/