Explanation of Email Do’s and Don'ts

By: Tanya Murphy 

Some people believe that email is the best invention thought of by man. Of course, what a better way to express ourselves sincerely through our own emotions and have the message delivered with the click of the mouse. No waiting on the mailman or having to buy a stamp, just typing our words and clicking. Almost instantly, the message is sent. However with this luxury there are a few problems, people seem to get a little carried away with forwards, punctuations, and chain letters. Seriously every time I dial up and here the infamous, “Welcome you’ve got mail,” I wonder how many emails will be the same.

After clicking my mailbox the first series of displayed messages are all ‘forwards’. Don’t get me wrong most of them are cute and funny, and I do feel blessed when I have received one from a fellow Christian; however, when you have the same friends forwarding you the same messages pretty soon your mailbox fills up with the same message. The first thing to remember, check the links and note where the email has already been forwarded, and try not to send it to the person that sent it to you.

Secondly, do not get carried away with punctuation. An exclamation mark is the same with one or one hundred. Just because you can hold down a button and the character will keep going with little or no effort from you does not mean it is necessary. Think about if you were writing the letter yourself, would you take the time to write all of those exclamation points; probably not, so don’t make your friends scroll half way down the page to find the rest of the message.

Lastly, let’s discuss the importance of chain letters; there isn’t one. The worst thing in the world with checking an email is finding one that says, “Pass this on to ten friends and receive one hundred dollars for every person you send it to.” Yeah right, not going to happen! The “money part” of these emails is a hoax. I know of course, because curiosity kicked in and I had to find out for myself. Now that I have expressed my dislikes for the things not to do in an email, there are a few things that are acceptable.

First when you write an email it is always a good to be brief and to the point. Some people may not have access to a printer and maybe hard for them to read long messages from a computer screen. Secondly, treat an email as a letter, don’t use all caps, because this sends the impression of yelling and you want your email to be polite. Lastly try to always remember to put something in the subject line. This allows the reader to categorize his or her mail in order of importance, and respond accordingly. To remind yourself of great email etiquette, just pretend that you are writing it for yourself and think of the things you would and wouldn’t like, then continue writing your message in that manner.

After thinking about what would be acceptable in your eyes proceed to use the wonderful world of technology with the confidence that your email will not be the one that everyone looks at to determine what not to do. J

Bibliography

Although no sources were cited in my paper I gather information from the following sources:

Dynamoo’s Emails Etiquette

Lepak’s Guide to Email Etiquette

E-mail Etiquette

All of the above mentioned contributed to my paper by providing a format on which I based my email do’s and don’ts.