Email Tips n' Tricks

I love email. Most people do. But like most things that look easy, there's more to email than meets the eye. You don't want to look like a fool, do you? Then read this:

• DON'T SHOUT. THAT MEANS, DON'T WRITE IN CAPITALS. MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A FOOL. TURN THE CAPS LOCK OFF.
  That's better. You CAN use uppercase to stress a point, but not the whole message.

• Don't send formatted email (e.g. HTML) unless you know the person you are sending it to wants to receive it. Makes you look like a fool. Set your Outlook preferences to Plain Text (Tools: Options: Mail Format).

• No subject: Remember to fill in the Subject line of the message or you'll look like a fool.

• Spelling and grammar: Yes, I know text messaging is cool, but will the person you are writing to be impressed by your coolness? Use the inbuilt spellchecker (Tools: Options: Spelling) and put a little thought into composing your message. Email lets the recipient build a mental picture of you as a person very quickly. You don't want to look like a fool, do you?

• Familiarity: Email should be fun, but remember who you are talking to. First names are fine for friends and personal messages, but "professional" messages to your bank manager or University tutors should follow the usual formalities. The best guide is to address someone by email in the same way to would talk to them face to face.

• Getting the message: 97.8% of human communication is non-verbal (smiles, body posture, tone of voice, etc). With email, you loose all that, and it's easy to be misunderstood. What you intended as a joke can easily be misinterpreted as offensive. A whole range of emoticons and acronyms have evolved to help with this. Use them freely to avoid misunderstandings, but when sending formal email, it's best to play on the safe side :-)

• Recipients: Check you are sending the message to the person(s) it's intended for, or you'll look like a fool. Make sure you understand the difference between the REPLY (reply to only the sender of the message) and REPLY TO ALL (reply to all recipients of the To and Cc boxes of the message). If an email requires acknowledgement, then you should reply promptly, but don't automatically respond to all messages if a reply is not needed. With email, less is more!

• Privacy: There is no such thing as a private email. EVERYTHING you write can potentially be seen by many others, from email administrators to anyone who reads your email after it has been forwarded. Always be prepared to stand by everything you write, so read and think before clicking SEND, especially if you're feeling angry at the time.

• Flames and Spam: To be flamed means that you've sent an e-mail to a person(s) that has caused that person(s) to respond with a verbal attack in electronic form. If you respond in the same tone, you could start a "flame war". Unless you are a fool, there are only two ways to respond to flames. If you made a mistake or regret your original message, apologize unreservedly. If not, delete the flame and don't reply (think "die fool, die" as you click the delete button if that helps).
  Spam is any form of unwanted and unsolicited email. This includes virus hoaxes. Only fools reply to spam. Just delete it.