English · Email Writing
Email Thanking Your Friend
A short thank-you email, with the model and the tone examiners reward.
A thank-you email is the shortest form in this section: a subject line naming the occasion, one paragraph recalling what your friend did and why it mattered, and one closing line offering to return the favour. Padding it out is the main error — brevity is part of what is being tested.
The question: Write an email thanking your friend for his help.
The format
Name what was done in the first line
A thank-you email is the shortest form in the section, so it opens on the substance. Say what your friend did and when, before anything else.
- Give the day or the occasion.
- Say why you are writing rather than sending a short message.
- 🚨 Do not open with a formula.
Show the result
Gratitude is most convincing when it can point to an outcome. Say what changed because of the help — a chapter understood, a problem set finished, a deadline met.
- One before-and-after detail.
- Acknowledge what the help cost your friend.
- ⚠️ Adjectives cannot do this work; a fact can.
Offer something in return
Close by offering help of your own, sized to the favour. It gives the email an ending and something for your friend to reply to.
Model answer
Model answer (about 120 words)
Subject: Thank you for Saturday
Dear Imran,
I wanted to write properly rather than send another two-line message, because Saturday made a real difference.
You gave up a full day of your own study time to go through the whole trigonometry chapter with me, and you did it without once making me feel slow about it, which I know from experience is the harder part. I worked through the exercise set again on Sunday and got all but two, having got almost none the week before. More usefully, I can now see why the identities work rather than only remembering them, which is what I had been missing all along. If you ever want the same for English grammar, or simply someone to test you before the exams, say the word and I am there. Thank you again.
Yours ever,
Faisal
What earns and loses marks
- Say what changed as a result. “I got all but two, having got almost none the week before” proves the help worked, which is a better thanks than any adjective.
- 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
About 110 to 130 words is right. Its shape is naturally brief: name what was done, say why it mattered, offer something in return. Stretching it to 200 words means repeating the thanks in different words, which reads as padding rather than warmth.
Specificity and consequence. Naming exactly what your friend did, and then what it led to, does the work. General praise — “you are a very good friend and I am grateful” — is what most scripts write and carries no information.
Yes, and it gives the email a natural ending. An offer sized to the favour works best: help with a subject you are strong in, or simply availability. It also turns the message from a closed statement into something the reader can reply to.
Keep going
Model answers, formats and grammar rules for every SSC and HSC writing question.