15 Email Grammar Mistakes That Undermine You

Your email might have the right ideas and the right ask. But if it leads with a cliché, buries the action item in a run-on sentence, or drops a misplaced apostrophe in the second line, the reader’s attention shifts — from what you’re saying to how you said it. Email grammar mistakes cost you credibility before you’ve made your case. If you want to learn from your grammar patterns rather than patch individual sentences, that starts with knowing which mistakes are doing the most damage. Here are 15 that appear in professional inboxes every day.

What Email Grammar Mistakes Actually Signal to Readers

Most email grammar mistakes aren’t about ignorance — they’re about habit. You’ve written “I hope this email finds you well” so many times it’s automatic. You’ve hit reply-all with “Thanks!” without a second thought. These habits accumulate. Over months and years, they shape how colleagues and clients read you.

The good news: patterns are fixable. Once you know which mistakes you repeat, you can target the root habit instead of proofreading every send from scratch.

Openers and Closers That Undermine Your Message (Mistakes 1–4)

1. “I wanted to reach out to touch base”

Wrong: I wanted to reach out to touch base regarding the proposal. Right: I’m following up on the proposal.

“Reach out” and “touch base” already overlap in meaning. Stacking them with “I wanted to” — a hedge that distances you from your own message — wastes the opening sentence on three redundant moves. Open with the actual point.

2. “I hope this email finds you well”

Wrong: I hope this email finds you well. I’m writing to discuss the budget review. Right: I’m writing to discuss the budget review.

This opener signals nothing and adds nothing. Readers scan past it automatically. If you genuinely want to acknowledge the relationship, write something specific: Good to connect after the conference last week. Otherwise, skip it entirely.

3. “Attached please find”

Wrong: Attached please find the updated contract. Right: I’ve attached the updated contract. or The updated contract is attached.

“Attached please find” is holdover legalese from the era of formal correspondence. It’s grammatically correct but stylistically dated. In a professional email today, it can make you sound stiff or unaware of how modern business writing has shifted.

4. “Please advise” without context

Wrong: The deadline has moved up. Please advise. Right: The deadline has moved up to Thursday. Can you confirm whether the design files will be ready by Wednesday EOD?

“Please advise” in isolation reads as passive-aggressive or incomplete, depending on who receives it. It puts all the interpretive work on the reader. Ask the specific question you need answered.

What Are the Most Common Email Grammar Mistakes? (Mistakes 5–10)

5. Subject-verb agreement with collective nouns

Wrong: The team have decided to delay the launch. Right: The team has decided to delay the launch.

In US English, collective nouns like team, committee, and staff take singular verbs. UK English allows the plural form — but if your audience is primarily American, the plural will read as an error. When in doubt, make it explicit: The team members have decided.

6. Skipping the comma in the salutation

Wrong: Hi John I’m writing to follow up on our call. Right: Hi John, I’m writing to follow up on our call.

The comma after the name in a direct-address greeting is non-negotiable. A fully formal approach uses Hi, John, — comma after “Hi” and after the name — but most professional emails settle for Hi John, and that’s widely accepted. Dropping the comma entirely runs the salutation into the sentence body and reads as rushed.

7. Run-on sentences in action items

Wrong: Could you review the deck and send me your feedback by Thursday and also loop in Sarah since she’ll be presenting and let me know if you need the source files. Right: Split into separate sentences or a short bulleted list. One ask per sentence.

Run-on action items bury the request and create work for the reader. When you’re asking someone to do three things, list three things. The common grammar mistakes professionals make often trace back to sentences that try to do too much at once.

8. “It’s” vs. “its”

Wrong: The project has met it’s deadline. Right: The project has met its deadline.

It’s is always a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” Its is the possessive. The apostrophe marks a missing letter, not ownership. If you can substitute “it is” and the sentence still holds, use the apostrophe. If not, drop it. This is one of the fastest email grammar mistakes for a reader to spot, and one of the easiest to fix once you know the rule.

9. Affect vs. effect

Wrong: This will effect our timeline significantly. Right: This will affect our timeline significantly.

In almost every email context, you want affect (verb: to influence), not effect (noun: the result). “Effect” as a verb does exist — it means to bring something about, as in effect change — but it’s rare. Default to affect when you’re describing one thing influencing another. An English writing assistant can flag this in context before you send, which is especially useful when you’re moving fast between tasks.

10. Sentence fragments as action items

Wrong: Will review by Friday. Right: I’ll review the draft by Friday. or Please review the draft by Friday.

Fragments drop the subject, which means the reader isn’t sure who’s responsible. In an email thread with multiple people copied, “Will review by Friday” is genuinely ambiguous. Subjects matter most when accountability matters — which is most of the time in professional email.

Tone and Word Choice Mistakes That Backfire (Mistakes 11–13)

11. “Per my last email”

Wrong: Per my last email, the deadline is March 15. Right: As I mentioned on Tuesday, the deadline is March 15. or resend with the relevant excerpt quoted directly.

“Per my last email” has become workplace shorthand for frustration. Even when you use it neutrally, many readers will interpret subtext — irritation, reproach, passive aggression. If you need to redirect someone to earlier information, quote the relevant line directly or reference the date and context specifically. This is one of those email grammar mistakes that causes more damage to relationships than to writing scores. See also: grammar mistakes that hurt credibility at work.

12. Capitalizing Random Words for Emphasis

Wrong: Please note that all Invoices must be submitted by End of Month. Right: Please note that all invoices must be submitted by end of month.

Random capitalization signals that the writer is reaching for emphasis without a clean way to achieve it. It reads as uninformed or slightly panicked. For genuine emphasis, use bold sparingly or restructure the sentence so the important word lands at the end, where it naturally carries more weight.

13. Mixing up “reply” vs. “respond” in formal requests

Wrong: Please reply to this inquiry at your earliest convenience. Right (formal context): Please respond to this inquiry at your earliest convenience.

This is a subtle register issue. “Reply” is conversational and email-specific; “respond” is broader and suits formal or compliance-related requests better. Neither is incorrect — but in a legal, HR, or client-service context, “please reply” can read as too casual. Know your audience and match the register.

Email Etiquette Habits That Function Like Grammar Errors (Mistakes 14–15)

14. Replying-all with “Thanks!”

Wrong: Replying to a 15-person thread with only: Thanks! Right: No reply, or a reply to the sender only.

This isn’t a grammar error in the strict sense, but it functions like one — it adds visual noise to a professional thread with no informational value. The habit undermines credibility the same way an unnecessary comma splice does: it tells the reader you didn’t pause to consider what you were sending before you sent it.

15. Using “CC” incorrectly as a verb

Wrong: I carbon copied you on the message. Right: I CC’d you on that email. or I copied you on that email.

“CC’d” is the accepted past tense in professional email. “Carbon copied” is technically accurate but sounds archaic and can pull focus. The grammatical trap is using “CC” in the past tense without the inflection (“I CC you last week”) or treating it as a noun when you mean the action (“Can you send a CC to Sarah?” should be “Can you copy Sarah?”).

How to Break the Cycle, Not Just Fix the Sentence

Spotting one instance of an email grammar mistake is straightforward. What’s harder is recognizing that you make the same mistake — it’s/its, or the “I hope this email finds you well” opener — across dozens of emails every week.

That’s where pattern-awareness pays off. NotchTutor tracks which grammar mistakes you repeat over time, so you’re not just fixing the current email but actually breaking the habit. That’s the difference between proofreading once and genuinely improving.

The fastest path to cleaner professional email is identifying which three or four mistakes are yours specifically, then targeting those. Use this list as a diagnostic. Read through it and notice which examples feel familiar — those are your habits, not just errors.