Author Josh Bernoff has lots of actionable writing advice, and he prides himself on Writing Without Bullshit.

Lately he’s been critiquing apologies by CEOs who’ve been outed (and even ousted) for sexist behavior. His July 6 post confronts a different offense: trolling. He calls out the Reddit user who posted a video of Donald Trump beating up on a figure identified as CNN and then apologized for being a troll.

As usual, Bernoff takes the apology apart paragraph-by-paragraph. First, he quotes a portion of the apology verbatim. Then he gives a succinct analysis:

Analysis: This is true: “Trolling is nothing more than bullying.” Now one troll has seen the light. There are only a few million left to reform.

Finally, he boils the verbiage down to what he thinks the author is really saying:

 Translation: Trolling is bad. Don’t be like me.

Then he asks, “What shall we do with trolls?” His answer: Expose them. “It’s a lot harder to be hateful if we know who you are.”

In response to those who take exception to his criticism, he asks, “Would you say it to their face?” He considers his comments fair if they critique “words and actions, not people or groups” and if he would deliver them directly to the person criticized.

His standards for fairness reflect a core principle of online etiquette, articulated by Virginia Shea in 1994: “Never mail or post anything you wouldn’t say to your reader’s face.”

Bernoff’s critiques are hard-hitting but civil. Taking on trolls without descending to their level requires a clear head and a stout heart. Thankfully, Bernoff has both, he’s willing to use them to expose self-serving apologists and trolls.

The best style for business writing, says Dianna Booher, is business casual, somewhere between “stuffed shirt” and “T-shirt.”

Booher’s guideline is intuitively obvious. Savvy business writers won’t begin with pompous prose like this: “Pursuant to your message on anticipated changes to predetermined shipping schedules…..” Neither will they email something like “Dude, got your message about shipping delays. Bummer.”

Yet style is only one of the things that determine the appropriate level of formality. Is it OK to use your reader’s first name in the greeting? Should you make your request directly or indirectly? Are you writing to a superior, a colleague, or a subordinate?

These decisions all require judgment, and these judgment calls can make or break your business relationships. Etiquette rules offer some guidance. However, decisions about how to apply a rule often depend on context. For example, etiquette manuals universally advise you to state a request politely. However, norms of polite behavior vary. in some cultures, stating your request directly is polite because it  respects your reader’s time. In other cultures, a direct request is disrespectful because it presumes that your reader is willing to comply.

How can you find the right balance of friendliness and formality? This self-scoring quiz can help: How Formal Does My Email Need to Be?A score of 45 is in the middle of the formality scale. This score of 66 suggests that the writer should follow the rules for polite greetings and closings, avoid slang, and be careful to avoid misspellings and grammar errors.

If you’re have questions about the rules of formal email etiquette,  download this free Quick Guide to Writing Professional Emails.

Notes

Dianna Booher’s “Stuffed Shirt or T-Shirt Writing?” is available at http://www.booher.com/newsroom_article25.html

For more about the difference between direct and indirect language, see Steven Pinker, “The Evolutionary Social Psychology of Speech Acts,” published in Intercultural Pragmatics in 2007, available at http://stevenpinker.com/files/evolutionary_social_psychology_of_off-record_indirect_speech_acts.pdf

When two kids get into a fight, a parent trying to sort things out may hear an angry confession: “I hit him first, but he hit me harder!” The accused typically replies with an indignant, “Did not!”

Both combatants may be telling the truth.

A team of neuroscientists asked volunteers to press one finger against a partner’s finger. They then told partners to press back with equal force. In every case, the return force was greater than the original pressure. “What began as a game of soft touches quickly became a game of moderate pokes and then hard prods, even though both volunteers were doing their level best to respond in kind,” reported the researchers. “Each volunteer was convinced that he was responding with equal force and that for some reason the other volunteer was escalating.”

Our brains underestimate the amount of force we exert by about 40 percent, the researchers found. As a result, conflicts can quickly escalate, even when both parties believe they’re acting with restraint.

We also tend to underestimate the effects of negative emotions in email. When we communicate face-to-face, we can soften harsh words by smiling, using a calm and gentle tone, or reaching out to touch another person. Email lacks those nonverbal cues. As a result, says Daniel Goleman, our brains have a negativity bias towards emails. If a sender writes an email with a positive tone, readers tend to interpret the tone as neutral. If the sender intends the tone to be neutral, readers often interpret it as negative.

To make matters worse, if a reader is offended by an email, the sender has no immediate way of knowing that. In conversation, we can correct a misunderstanding or apologize on the spot. With email, the first clue that we’ve given offense may be an angry reply or a long self-justifying response. These replies are often interpreted more aggressively than they are intended. As a result, simple misunderstandings can easily escalate into conflict.

When the tone of an email exchange starts to turn negative, you can keep things from escalating by picking up the phone or having a face-to-face conversation. If you must reply by email, give yourself time to cool off before you send a response. Check your tone by reading your message aloud or asking someone you trust to review it for anything that might cause offense. Stick to the facts as much as possible. Position yourself as your reader’s ally rather than as an opponent.

While these strategies won’t prevent all email conflicts, they can reduce misunderstandings and lower the likelihood that angry exchanges will escalate into hostile attacks .

Notes: Sukhwinder S. Shergill is the lead author of “Two Eyes for an Eye: The Neuroscience of Force Escalation,” reported in Science, July 11, 2003: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/301/5630/187.citation

Daniel Goleman explains the negativity bias of email in Empathy and Email: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBCiSAJ20Wc

Raymond A. Friedman and Stephen C. Currall are the authors of “Email Escalation: Dispute Exacerbating Elements of Electronic Communication” (2002): http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=304966