ABSTRACT:The rapid growth and wide application of E-commerce swiftly changes the traditional ways of communication----sending letters, into modern less time-consuming ways, such as E-mail, fax, telephone and so on. In the exchange of business information in International trade, E-mail, with its characteristic of being swift, convenient and less cost, is the most frequently used communication approach. As for the principles of international business correspondent, lots of scholars summarize as “7C” principles. And large numbers of reference books on how to write a good business letters are provided and most of which commonly starts from introducing the “7C” principles.
However，after a painstaking study on emails collected from people who are dealing with import and export together with their tips, the author finds out that E-mail writings are different from specimens in the reference books which are a little rigid and inflexible.
In this thesis, the author starts from the practicality of the email writing, collect emails, analyze information, and gather the experience collected from foreign trade businessmen in order to, to a deeper extent, study the three frequently-used principles in “7C” principle, which is different from those in reference books.
Key words: international business correspondent; writing Principles; clearness; conciseness; courtesy
摘要:电子商务的广泛运用改变了传统寄信交流方式为电子邮件，电报，电话等现代化交流方式。在国际贸易往来的交流中，电子邮件以其方便快捷低成本等特点而被广泛运用。对外贸函电写作原则，许多学者将其总结为“7C”原则，国内的函电写作教程参考书也皆从介绍“7C”原则开始。
然而，笔者通过收集国际贸易业务往来的电子邮件及相关外贸人士的有关经验，研究发现电子邮件写作不同于参考书中那么死板，其写作更具实用性及灵活性。
本文主要从电子邮件的实用性出发，对收集的电子邮件信息进行整理，同时总结外贸人士的提供的相关心得，跳出外贸函电写作教程原有的范围，分析“7C”原则在电子邮件中最相关的三大原则：清楚，简洁，礼貌，更深程度地研究这三原则，以提高邮件写作内容的实用性。
关键词：外贸函电；写作原则；清楚；简洁；礼貌
With the rapid development of international trade and the booming of e-commerce, email, as an approach of business communication, has played an indispensable part in foreign trade. In order to bring us to a more profound understanding of foreign trade correspondence, some people have analyzed 7 writing principles and provide us lots of reference materials. They do help us as a guide. However, 7C principles and specimen in reference books are somehow rigid and inflexible.
Practically, this thesis makes a deep observation on the three frequently-used writing principles through first-hand information collected from people who are dealing with foreign trade. From the emails written by foreign business people, deep observation on how to write a good email and how foreign business people write are carried out in this thesis. As a person who has rich experience in foreign trade says, we are not sure a good email can one hundred percent get an order, but we can definitely tell that a bad email can one hundred percent loss an order.
This thesis aims to find out what main principles are commonly adopted in email writing and learn how to apply them in practice from different aspects in order to write a good email. But there exist some limitations in the thesis; it needs more time and study to reveal more aspects of the writing principles.
