Adopt a tone of neutrality.

There are a few devices that, when deployed in written or verbal venues, come off as non-neutral, accusatory, aloof, or even hostile. Avoid these turns of phrase — “as I said before”, “as per my last email”, “that’s not my problem”, and “you misunderstood me” — and formatting faux-pas — excessive punctuation (!!!), typing in ALL CAPS, premature escalation through the CC field, and excessive use of emoji or texting abbreviations.