The Secret of a Good TOEFL® Email Is Register
Where English keeps its politeness
Many languages mark formality with a special pronoun: one word for “you” with a friend, another with a teacher. English does not. It has a single “you” for everyone, so the pronoun tells your reader nothing about how much respect you intend.
The respect has to go somewhere else, and it goes into your choice of words and phrases. “Can you help me?” and “I would be grateful if you could assist me” ask for the same thing. They are not the same email. This property of language is called register: the level of formality that your word choices add up to.
What the test asks for
In the Write an Email task, you read a short scenario and write an email that does three things, listed as bullet points. You have seven minutes.
ETS publishes the scoring guide. A response at the top level shows consistent use of social conventions, and the guide’s own list of those conventions names “register”. It also shows “effective syntactic variety and precise, idiomatic word choice”. In plain terms: the right level of formality, sentences that are not all the same shape, and words that are exact.
The formality chart
Each row below says one thing at three levels. Read across a row to see the level change while the meaning stays put.
| More formal | Neutral | Informal |
|---|---|---|
| I would be grateful if you could | Could you | Can you |
| assist | help | give a hand |
| inform | tell | let … know |
| purchase | buy | pick up |
| obtain | get | grab |
| dubious | questionable | sketchy |
| I apologize | I’m sorry | my bad |
A professor, an office or a manager gets the left and middle columns. A friend or a classmate gets the middle and the right. The common mistake is mixing them: “Dear Professor” at the top and “my bad” in the second line.
The same request, written twice
A student wants someone to look over a scholarship essay before Friday. Here is the request to a friend.
Hi Dana,
Can you do me a favor? I’m applying for that scholarship I told you about, and my essay still needs work. Could you give it a quick look before Friday? It’s only two pages.
Thanks a lot,
Sam
And here is the same request to a professor.
Dear Professor Alvarez,
I am writing to ask for your assistance. I am applying for the Hartwell Scholarship, and I would be grateful if you could review my essay before Friday. It is two pages long, and even brief comments would be very helpful.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Sam Okafor
Nothing about the request changed. These did:
| Feature | To a friend | To a professor |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting | Hi Dana, | Dear Professor Alvarez, |
| Contractions | I’m, it’s | I am, it is |
| The request | Can you …? | I would be grateful if you could … |
| Word choice | a favor, give it a quick look | your assistance, review |
| Closing | Thanks a lot, | Thank you for your time. Sincerely, |
The recipe
Register is the base. On top of it, a strong email usually contains five things. This list is our teaching advice, not an ETS rule: it is one dependable way to produce the variety and precision the scoring guide describes.
- One precise adjective, at the right level. “The current system seems inadequate” says more than “the system is bad”, and it suits an office. To a friend, you might simply call the same system useless.
- One conditional sentence. “If the deadline could be extended by two days, I would be able to include the final results.” A conditional lets you ask for something without demanding it.
- One complex sentence. “Although I registered in March, my name is not on the list.” One main clause, one clause that depends on it. Here “complex” is a grammar term: it names how the sentence is built, not how difficult it is. A complex sentence can be short and easy to read.
- One compound-complex sentence. “I called the office when it opened, but nobody answered.” Two main clauses joined, plus a dependent one.
- One idiomatic expression, used once. “The key to solving this is a single shared calendar.” It should sound like something you would say, placed where it fits.
A warning that belongs with any recipe: an ingredient forced into the wrong sentence costs more than it earns. Use each one once, where it does a job. If one does not fit the scenario, leave it out.
Seven minutes, in order
- First minute. Read the three bullet points and decide who you are writing to. That decision sets the register for every sentence that follows.
- Minutes two to five. Answer each bullet in order, in one or two sentences. An email that skips a bullet has not done the task, however well it is written.
- Minute six. Look at what you have. Add an ingredient from the recipe only where a sentence would be better for it.
- Last minute. Check the greeting and the closing against the reader, look for a contraction that should not be there, and read the commas.
One finished email
The scenario: your study group reserved a library room, but when you arrived the screen outside showed it as taken. Write to the library’s services coordinator. Explain what happened, say how it affected your group, and suggest a solution.
Dear Ms. Rivera,
I am writing about a problem with the study room booking system. Although my group had reserved Room 204 for Tuesday at two o’clock, the screen outside showed that it was occupied when we arrived.complex sentence
We waited for twenty minutes, but nobody could tell us who had the room.compound-complex sentence As a result, we lost most of the session we had planned. This matters because our presentation is due on Thursday. The current system seems inadequate.precise adjective
If each booking produced a confirmation code, staff would be able to check it immediately.conditional sentence The key to avoiding this problem is a record that both students and staff can see.idiomatic expression
Thank you for looking into this.
Sincerely,
Dana Whitfield
Three bullets, three short paragraphs, one register from the greeting to the signature. Each ingredient appears once and none of them is decoration.
Practice Write an Email, with feedback on register →