← Chapter 2
Professional Writing · Chapter 2

Who Is in the Room

The recipient fields are a governance system disguised as a form: To asks you to act, CC only informs you, BCC hides you. Place each person, choose reply or reply-all, write a subject line, then hit send and read what actually happens — who becomes accountable, who feels watched, how many interruptions you caused, and what a privacy officer would say.

1 · The situation

2 · Place every person

3 · How you are sending it

Owner
—
Interruptions
0
Privacy risk
—

The envelope

Tonobody
Ccnobody
Bccnobody
Subj

Pre-send check

Place people, then send.Nothing has left your outbox yet. Every choice below changes who is accountable, who feels surveilled, and whether this message is a problem in six months.
Address last, always. Write the message, run the check, then fill the recipient field. One habit prevents the two worst email accidents at once — the half-finished message sent by a stray keystroke, and the angry draft that left before it cooled.