The dos and donts of writing and sending formal email

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The dos and donts of writing and sending formal
e-mail
E
-MAIL
TIQUETTE
Based on the article E-mail Etiquette by Keith
C. Ivey
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• Read the manual or use the help feature for your
  e-mail program.
• Discover the features included with your program.
• Not only will this help you figure out how to
  operate the program, but it will help you avoid
  sending messy or multiple copies of messages to
  your recipients.

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• Line-wrap determines the amount of characters
  in a line of text before breaking to the next
  line.
• Not all e-mail programs use line-wrapping or do a
  good job of handling it.
• To avoid line-wrapping problems, limit the length
  of your lines.
• Some programs allow you to set the length of your
  lines so they break automatically.
• You can press Enter after your lines reach a
  certain length.
• Otherwise, text can run off the screen or end up
  pressed together, depending on your e-mail
  program.

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• Make sure you are sending to the right
  recipient(s).
• When replying to messages sent via a list (using
  the Cc function), be mindful of who you want
  your message sent to.
• Do you want to reply to the whole list?
• Do you want to reply to just one person?
• Use the blind-copy (Bcc) function when sending a
  message to a list of people to prevent exposing
  the addresses of your recipients to everyone who
  receives it.

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• A signature is a message you can attach to the
  end of every
• e-mail you send.
• Most e-mail programs have a function that will
  automatically add a customized signature to all
  your messages.
• A formal signature should consist of your name
  and contact information, similar to one at the
  end of mail sent on paper.
• Keep signatures to a maximum of four lines and
  avoid unnecessary links, quotes, ASCII art, etc.

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• Not all e-mail programs can handle all types of
  text.
• Special characters or accents might show up as
  ASCII code or not at all on programs that dont
  support them.
• Stick to your programs default ASCII character
  set.
• Most programs can handle the ASCII character set
  Latin 1, which supports 100 additional characters
  sufficient for most western European languages.

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• Unless the recipient is using the same e-mail
  program you are, any formatting made to text will
  either not show up or appear as unreadable.
• Even if the recipient is using the same program
  you are, there is no guarantee they are using the
  same settings.
• Some examples of popular formatting used in
  e-mail are
• Bold or italic text
• Elaborate fonts
• HTML code
• Images

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• Most e-mail programs create hypertext out of URLs
  (web addresses), but only if the syntax is
  correct.
• Begin URLs with http// in order to create
  clickable links the recipient can easily access.

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• Limit the amount of the message youre replying
  to in your own message. Use only that which is
  relevant to your reply.
• Any text from the previous message you include
  should begin with a greater-than (gt) sign at the
  beginning of the line.
• Some programs can do this automatically.

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• Do not forward any mass-circulating e-mail to
  anybody (virus-alerts, chain letters, jokes,
  etc.).
• http//www.kumite.com/myths/ is a site that
  contains information on which virus alerts are
  myths- a good reference if you are concerned on a
  virus-alert received via e-mail.
• Do not send any unsolicited bulk email (also
  known as spam).

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• Many people determine what to do with an e-mail
  based on its subject.
• Never leave the subject field blank.
• Make sure your subject sufficiently summarizes
  the topic of your e-mail.
• Example If your e-mail is asking a professor a
  question about a lecture on chemistry, a subject
  that reads A question about your chemistry
  lecture will receive higher priority over one
  that just reads question.

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• Did ya get that thing I sent ya?
• http//www.eeicommunications.com/eye/utw/98may.ht
  ml