English · Email Writing
Email to Your Friend About the Bad Effects of Smoking
An advice email against smoking, with a complete model and the format.
Say in the first line why you are writing, name two or three specific harms, and end with a concrete suggestion rather than a general warning. An advice email is shorter and more direct than the letter version of the same task, so resist adding a paragraph of pleasantries before getting to the point.
The question: Write an email to your friend about the bad effects of smoking.
The format
Say the difficult thing in the first sentence
An email has no room to approach a subject gradually. Name what you saw and why you are writing in the opening two sentences, or the message reads as evasive rather than tactful.
- Reference a specific occasion.
- Acknowledge that you nearly did not write.
- 🚨 Do not open with a general warning about smoking.
One example beats five facts
Your reader already knows what smoking does. What they have not heard is your particular story: someone who was sure they could stop, and how long that certainty lasted.
- A named relation and a span of years is the strongest shape.
- One sentence, not a paragraph, on the medical side.
- ⚠️ Avoid statistics you cannot vouch for.
Leave the decision with them
Close with an offer and a promise not to raise it again. That single sentence is what keeps the email friendly, and it is where the tone mark is settled.
Model answer
Model answer (about 135 words)
Subject: Something I have been meaning to say
Dear Shakib,
I am writing about something I should probably have said in person on Friday, when I saw you smoking behind the college canteen.
I am not going to lecture you about lungs; you have read the same warnings I have. What I keep thinking about is my uncle, who started at your age, insisted for thirty years that he could stop whenever he wanted, and finally stopped last winter only after a heart scare that frightened all of us. Thirty years is a long time to be wrong about something. You have been smoking a few months, which is the whole reason I am writing now instead of later. If you want to stop and want company doing it, tell me. Either way I will not raise it again.
Yours ever,
Tanvir
What earns and loses marks
- Say the difficult thing in the first sentence. In an email there is no room to approach a subject gradually, and a message that circles for a paragraph reads as evasive rather than tactful.
- Write about 120 to 150 words in the body. An email answer of 250 words has usually become a letter with a subject line on top.
- 🚨 Do not add your postal address anywhere. That is the single clearest sign that a letter answer has been reused for an email question.
- Keep the subject line and the first sentence consistent — if the subject says one thing and the message opens on another, the answer looks assembled rather than written.
- Sign with your name only; no designation, no address, no phone number in an informal email.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ground it in something you saw or were told, offer one specific reason rather than a list of harms, and end with an offer instead of an instruction. A closing line that lets your friend decide — “either way I will not raise it again” — does more for the tone than any amount of softening in the middle.
Something that names the purpose without accusing: “Something I have been meaning to say” works, as does “About Friday”. Avoid a subject line that delivers the criticism before the message opens, and avoid one so vague the reader cannot tell what it concerns.
No — in 140 words a list crowds out everything that would make the email persuasive. One human example does more work than five medical terms, and it avoids the risk of stating something inaccurately.
Keep going
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