Email Etiquette
·
Do
not write in caps because this is considered yelling or shouting in cyberspace.
·
To
avoid clogging other people's inbox's or slowing down their incoming messages, you should not send huge attachments unless absolutely necessary.
Some ‘pet
hates’ in regards to email etiquette would include:
·
Receiving
an email with no greeting.
·
Writing
in different fonts and sizes in one long message.
·
Receiving
an email with a large attachment that takes forever to download.
·
Spam
such as peoples trying to sell themselves or other useless products.
Some tips on emailing would include:
"Re:"
means "Reply:" and should only be used in replies.
Make sure
recipients can open the attachments you send them by agreeing on their format
beforehand.
Don't send
personal messages to millions. Double-check where you send your email,
especially when you reply to a mailing list message.
Don't clog
email systems without permission.
"Me
too" is not enough content, but too much annoyance.
I'll see
you 020301, right? Here's how to avoid confusion about dates in emails.
Avoid
embarrassing emails by sending them to you only (by default).
No, really!
I mean it. Honestly!
Make sure
the links in your emails work. Punctuation around URLs can interfere with that.
One
exclamation mark is certainly enough!! This cannot be stressed enough.
New ideas
are better ideas. If you read all replies to a particular message on a mailing
list before replying yourself, you can avoid repeating something that's already
been said.
Forwarding
emails is a great way of sharing ideas, but make sure the original idea is not
hidden in obfuscation.
Dear Ms,
Mrs and Mr Reader... fortunately, emails can often do without titles and names.
Did the
spam filter eat my message? Spare others this nagging question and let them
know you got their email.
"Reply"
is good. "Reply to all" is better. Right?
Email
hoaxes often contain stories that are intriguing, and sure to irritate. Here's
how to spot and stop urban legends.
You don't
want to be a spammer, do you? Replying to spam that appears on a mailing list
may make you look like one, though.
Everything
you mail will be used against you.
Share
emails by forwarding them in a smart and efficient manner.
Share the
full message and the full contents in a clean way, but don't disclose other
recipient's email addresses.
You can
often find typos or misplaced commas neither your spelling checker nor you
yourself catch when proofreading on the screen.
If you need
to type characters nowhere to be found on your keyboard, Mac OS X provides
comfortable ways to find and insert them in your emails.
Do you want
to include some French in your emails, spell a name or place properly or
discuss old Chinese writings maybe? Here's how to include foreign language
characters in your messages using Windows.
End email
conversations without unnecessary "Thank You" and "You're
welcome" notes that are more annoying than nice.
Make your
email replies easy to read and understand by quoting in a smart and useful
manner.
Message for
you, you, you, and you. If you send an email to multiple recipients, make sure
you enter them correctly.
Make sure
you don't send messages from 1981.
Make sure
you're not spreading worms and viruses via email or act as a vehicle for
spreading spam. All this can be caused by malicious emails. Fortunately,
there's protection.
Hint at
formatting smartly in the plain text email you write and have it rendered as
rich text in supporting email programs while the message still looks good to
everyone else. Here's how to employ Markdown formatting in your emails.
Do you make
these mistakes in your email subjects? (The key to getting your messages read
is not to be clever.)
Do not
intimidate recipients with too much text.
"Signature"
is a synonym for brief and unobtrusive — or at least it should be, because
overly long signatures in emails are an annoyance.
Come visit
me, everybody! Unless you want everybody and the whole world to know where you
live, don't include your street address in your email signature.
Do you
think quoting original text in your email replies perfectly is a lot of work?
Don't let the '>' intimidate you! Here's a very comfortable, relaxed,
quick and still clean and compatible way to reply properly.
Comma,
colon, hyphen and semicolon — all exist for a reason: they make it easier to
understand the intended meaning of a sentence. Don't make life more difficult
and possibly less interesting for the recipients of your emails. Pay some —
though not too pedantically much — attention to punctuation.
Share the
message, not email addresses when forwarding an email.
The Subject
line of your emails is important, but you shouldn't rely on it being read or
paid attention.
Let
recipients reply when (ever) they want.
When your
photos look good in your email, you look good, too! Here's how to make sure
your images are not larger than screens and mailboxes by resizing them in style
— online and for free.
What is
okay here may be an affront there. Customs differ from mailing list to mailing
list, and you should respect each.
You made a
mistake, if I'm not mistaken. Pointing out email etiquette mistakes in public
is not very polite and a bit annoying — an email etiquette faux pas,
so to speak.
Don't use
smileys to say something you should not (and don't intend to) say in emails.
Don't send
anything you don't want to send.
Help make
the world less confusing. Try to talk about one subject per message only. For
another subject, start a new email.
Waach
prablym? (The problem that you are so difficult to read.)
It's never
off-topic to state when your message is.
DYK? Not
everybody knows every acronym, and they don't save that much time anyway.
Put a bold
face onto your plain text. Here's how to make simple text stand out among its
peers by mimicking bold face in plain text emails.
Bullet
points make your emails *easier to read and *easier to reply to.
You have the
future, and the present of humankind in your hands — even when you just write
an email.
Emphasize
text the Italian way in your emails by italicizing passages and words, even
when you write using plain text only.
Messageswithhardlyanywhitespacearedifficulttodecipher.
Choose
wisely when creating a new email address and help avoid email address case
confusion.
Sign your
signature correctly by employing the standard signature delimiter in your
emails.
Do you
often (want to) say something without quite saying it? Say something just to be
able to take it back? Here's a handy shortcut for doing that in emails, and a
way to communicate Freudian slippers, too.
The problem
that whatever can be misinterpreted will indeed be misunderstood is not unique
to email, but with email it is uniquely severe.
If you
don't know how to say good-bye at the end of an email, there's one thing that
will almost always be appropriate. Thanks.
Not
everybody can receive your fancily formatted emails. Some may even react
furious. To be safe rather than sorry, send plain text emails only when in
doubt.
Without a
line sub-scripted "sign here", how do you decide where to place your
email signature? Look here.
Smaller is
more beautiful, at least when it comes to email attachments. So make files
smaller before your send them via email.
Tell it
like it is. Have you notices how people who you understand perfectly well when
you listen to them become cryptic when they start writing?
Make your
messages a joy to read by ensuring your lines are short and sweet.
Don't shout
in your emails (and all caps are so difficult to read).
