Email opened up for a whole new form of communication. Almost
like a letter, but lacking in the personal feel of a hand-
written document, and transmitted in a matter of seconds. Just
as there are certain "rules" to follow when writing a letter,
so it is with email.
It's said that communication between humans is approximately
90% body language, 8% tone of voice, and 2% what you say. With
email, the first 98% is removed. Be aware of this when you
write emails. Be very obvious with your meanings, since
subtleties can often be lost or completely misunderstood.
Remember this too, when reading others' emails. Their
understanding of the language, or their haste in composing the
email, may have given it a "tone" that can easily come across
as being derogatory or aggressive. Reread it and see if you are
simply misinterpreting the words.
While you should maintain your personal style, there are a few
points you should keep in mind...
Don't overquote
When you hit the reply button, the original message will be
quoted in the new one. Leaving the entire message intact makes
for unnecessarily large mails. Only quote the portions that are
relevant to your reply.
Privacy
Emails are private documents and should therefore be treated as
such. Information received via email should not be spread
without the consent of the author. If somebody wrote you a
letter, you wouldn't just send it on to your friends and
colleagues would you? Or post the content in a discussion forum
or newsgroup? Don't do it with email either.
Formality
Although email is generally more informal than the written
letter, remain respectful when mailing somebody you don't know
well. Don't use short versions of names. If the mail is
signed "Susan", don't reply with "Hi Sue". Some people miss out
the salutations, and just sign their mails with a
simple "Tina". Although informal, "Regards, Tina" would still
comes across better.
Wasting Space
From one extreme to the other, there are those with eternally
long signatures which are added to the bottom of every mail
they send. Look at the example below:
| Hi Jane
Thanks for the mail. I'll call you tomorrow.
Regards
Tina Nobody
Department Manager
Nobody Ltd., London
www.nobody.com
email: tina@nobody.com
+++++
Contact us for all your stationary needs
+++++ |
Is it really necessary with this long signature on a short,
informal mail? There's more signature than message. Tina has
obviously had former contact with Jane, and therefore Jane no
doubt already knows where Tina works, what her position is, etc
etc. She also knows that this is the place to go to cover her
stationary needs.
Some signatures are worse than this. They include a "daily
thought", ASCII art designs and kinds of weird and wonderful
things. Keep your signatures short. Include only the
information you NEED to include. Most email programmes allow
for a choice of signatures. You could have one for the initial
contact (something like the one in the above example) and a
couple for more informal contact.
Carbon Copies
If you are sending an email to a large group of people, avoid
using the "CC" field of your email programme. If you use this,
everybody who receives the mail will be able to see the email
addresses of everybody else it has gone to. Email addresses are
personal and private. Only the owner of the address should
decide who is to have access to their address. Use "BCC" (Blind
Carbon Copy) instead. This way, each recipient will only be
able to see their own email address.
HTML Mail
Unless you know that the recipient has an email programme
capable of reading HTML (Rich Text), don't use it. Stick to
plain text or you could risk your message becoming an
unreadable mess.
Slow Down
Email has a feel of immediacy about it. Because of this, a lot
of people are hasty when writing or replying to email. This is
fine when it's just a short, informal mail to say "See you
tomorrow", but if you're upset, angry or trying to put an
important point across, the ease of pressing the send button
can get you into trouble. Re-read your mail, edit when
necessary, then re-read it again. The Internet as a whole tends
to stress people, you have a feeling that everything should
happen quickly. Don't let it stress you. A few more minutes
aren't going to hurt you, but being too hasty may lead to
unwanted consequences.
DON'T CAPITALISE
Unless you need to capitalise a particular word to stress a
point, capitals, other than where grammatically correct, should
be avoided at all costs. On the net (and the net includes
email), capitals are considered to be SHOUTING. Do you really
want to should at everybody you come into contact with?
Emoticons
Small "faces" made with the characters on your keyboard. Used
in email, they can help you "show" the tone in which you are
saying something. They can be helpful, but don't smother your
mails with them. Here are a few of the most common emoticons
(otherwise known as smileys).
:-) Smiling
:-( Sad
;-) Winking/Joking
:-0 Surprised
Spam
Never, ever spam! Don't send out unsolicited email. In the
worst instance you can be banned by your ISP for spamming (most
ISP's support an anti-spam policy). Few of us like
receiving "junk mail", whether through the door or on the net,
and although email may seem like an easy way of reaching a huge
audience, if they haven't asked for it, don't send it!
Enjoy the new possibilities that email has opened up for us.
Make new friends, stay in touch, and have information sent to
you quickly and efficiently. Use it, but don't abuse it!
