In my last article, we discussed email basics. This week we’ll continue our discussion about email by explaining a few internet etiquette (aka, netiquette) rules below.
- Don’t use capital letters to make large packets of words seem more important. When read, it looks like you are shouting at the recipient. In fact, avoid all non-grammatical uses of capitals. If you want to emphasize a word or sentence, “bold” or underline the text instead, by highlighting it and clicking the “B” or “U” button on the text formatting bar, or press Ctrl-B or Ctrl-U.
- Imagine a non-personal email comes into your inbox, maybe a funny joke or a cute story. You like it and want to forward it to all your friends and family. First, ask yourself if they really want this email forwarded to them. They would probably much rather receive two or three lines telling them how you’re doing than to receive hundreds of forwarded jokes.
- Next, realize that forwarding an email exposes you to spam (junk email) and hoaxes, as your email address stays on that forwarded email as it flies around the internet. Spammers routinely use computer programs to pick up addresses from these emails. If you still choose to forward it, make sure you add the addresses of your recipients in the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) address row. Blind Carbon Copy means that the respondents will still get the email, but their email address won’t be shown and won’t be picked up by spammers and hoaxters. Also, as a courtesy, remove existing names on the email from previous forwardings.
- If you are communicating by email with more than one person, such as for a business transaction, add everyone’s email address to the CC (Carbon Copy) address row. It’s polite, shows you’re not hiding anything, keeps everyone up-to-date, allows others to comment if they want to, and reminds your respondent that other people are also following the conversation.
- Don’t write anything in an email that you wouldn’t mind the whole world knowing, Emails may seem temporal, yet they are anything but. Email communication is very easily saved, categorized, and forwarded — faster than gossip! Be polite, and don’t write anything you wouldn’t write on the back of a postcard.
- Keep in mind who you’re writing to, and adjust your style accordingly. It may be easy to jot off a quick email to your son without capitalization, proper spelling or good punctuation, but doing the same in an email to your boss or an older relative is inappropriate.
These six “netiquette” rules are just a start. For more examples, check out Miss Manners’ website:
www.netmanners.com/email-etiquette/courtesy-1
or the original Netiquette Handbook:
www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html
Unfortunately, many people will not follow these important guidelines, through ignorance or just laziness. But I encourage you to read, learn and use proper netiquette and be a good netizen (internet denizen).
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