You're probably using this punctuation mark way too much at work!

Raise your hand if the following looks familiar to you:

Hi Christie! Thanks for sending over those spreadsheets! They were super helpful! Don’t forget to call in later today!!

In the realm of workplace communication, most of us are guilty of serially abusing the exclamation point. Once reserved for expressions of shock, excitement, or extreme surprise, it’s now more likely to be interpreted as a sign of basic politeness. Accordingly, it’s risen to levels of usage not seen since the age of the Victorian bodice-ripper. (“Oh, Lord Picklethwait, you musn’t!” she moaned as he brushed her thigh!)

The exact reasons for this are anyone’s guess. Maybe it has to do with technology. “There seems to be this blur, now, with Twitter and texting and email, and people don’t realize that these are really three distinct communication modes with distinct levels of formality,” says Judith Kallos, who’s been writing about email etiquette for over 15 years at NetManners.com.

Then again, maybe it has to do with language, which is always in a state of flux (after all, Oxford Dictionaries named the crying/laughing emoji its word of the year). Or maybe people are just a lot more shocked, excited, and surprised than they used to be.

Whatever the case, our professional reality is a place that is frequently great! and yay! and hey Doris, we need to talk about the restructuring that’s happening next week! Like it or not, it’s a reality we need to accept—and more importantly, be good professional citizens who honor our peers, even when they sound like they just huffed a can of rainbows.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the subtleties (or should we say “subtleties!”) of exclamation point usage in the workplace.

Punctuation creates an effect

The manner in which you punctuate a sentence has a tangible impact on the tone implied in its content. For instance:

Hi Christie. Thanks for sending over those spreadsheets. They were super helpful. Don’t forget to call in later today.

Where the earlier, exclamation point-laden iteration suggested a tone of simple (if slightly frenzied) appreciation, swapping periods for exclamation points creates a sense of ambiguity about the writer’s feelings—intended or not.

To some, the mood here may seem colder, distantly professional, perhaps even suggestive of a disparity in power between writer and recipient. Stripped of its exclamation point, “They were super helpful” takes on a sarcastic edge (yeah, real helpful), while “don’t forget to call in later today” concludes things on a potentially worrisome note—could these be the last spreadsheets poor, doomed Christie will ever send?

One is enough

Of course, it’s far more likely that everything is fine, and we’re so conditioned to exclamation overkill that we project a whole disjunct between what the writer puts down and his or her intended meaning.

So exclamation points are totally awesome, and we should use them as much as possible—right?

Nope. “One is enough,” says Kallos. “As soon as you start adding more, you’re overemphasizing. Rarely do I find in business emails that an exclamation point is needed at all, because you can come off as bossy or pushy really easily, depending on the email’s context. It can take it to a different level or dimension that maybe you didn’t want.”

That’s especially true when you’re the one initiating the interaction. “If you’re emailing a new business contact, you always want to take the highest level of formality until they indicate differently,” says Kallos. “Pay attention to what the other side is doing, and respond to their cues.”

Really: one is enough!!

Some of the rules regarding exclamation usage are pretty much common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people have embraced the dreaded double-exclamation point, which is comparable to writing your emails entirely in Comic Sans. For example:

Thanks for getting back to me about the Funyuns contract.

Thanks for getting back to me about the Funyuns contract!

Thanks for getting back to me about the Funyuns contract!!

While either of the first two would be acceptable under most circumstances, there’s no reason to stoop to the email equivalent of screaming in someone’s ear. We get it, you’re super psyched about closing the Funyuns deal—can we move on now? IT’S NOT AS BAD AS TYPING IN ALL CAPS, THOUGH. NEVER DO THAT, UNLESS YOU WRITE NEON SIGNS FOR A LIVING.

In the end, the etiquette of modern office communication is a fluid, still-evolving thing, and it will often fall to you to determine whether or not something’s appropriate. Unfortunately, there’s no set rulebook regarding exclamation point usage, and what flies in one office might make you look rude or curt (or, conversely, slightly rabid) in another. While you can never truly control the way you’re perceived by those around you, you can still strive to be the best, clearest, most considerate communicator possible—and yes, we’ll cap that sentence off with one of these!

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