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Just as there are etiquette
guidelines for business meetings and social events, there
are also etiquette guidelines for the proper use of email.
A review of the following tips could prove helpful in
brushing up on your email etiquette. |
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The Subject... |
NEVER
send an email with a blank Subject field.
Many email clients and servers are set to automatically
delete any email without a subject on the assumption
it is spam.
It's courteous to let your
recipient know what your email is about.
Use a meaningful subject that will make sense to the
recipient. |
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Multiple
Recipients... |
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When sending an email to more
than one recipient,
don't put all the email recipients'
addresses in the To: field. Doing so publicizes someone
else's email address without their permission. The same
policy applies to the cc: field.
The best practice
is to put your own email address
in the To: field and put all recipients' addresses in the
Bcc: field, where they will not be seen by anyone else. |
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Attachments... |
The first rule is to
never send
anyone an attachment without their prior consent.
If you need to send an attachment, first take the
time to explain what it is and why you're sending it. As a
precaution against viruses, many recipients routinely delete
any emails containing attachments that have been sent
without prior notice. If you receive an attachment, always
take the time to virus scan it.
Never send large
attachments - they can annoy your recipient
and even bring down their email system. Sending someone a
large (over 300K) attachment without prior approval is
considered by some to be email bombing.
Email was never meant to be used
to transfer large files. Some IPS's (Internet Service
Provider) block attachments over a certain size. A large
attachment can overfill the recipient's available email
space on their ISP and lock them out of their email until it
can be cleared. IPS's generally only give a certain amount
of space on their server for email - usually from 3 megs to
10 MB in size.
Check out our
October 2003 Tech Tools for alternate ways to make large
files available while still practicing good email etiquette. |
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Spelling... |
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Improper spelling, grammar and
punctuation can create a bad impression of you and your
company. Set the preferences in your email program to run an
automatic spell check of every message before it is sent
out. |
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Fancy
Formatting... |
Plain text is best.
When you
send an email in rich text or HTML format, the recipient
might only be able to receive plain text emails. If this is
the case, the recipient will receive your message as a .txt
attachment.
Using HTML to format messages so that they have fancy fonts,
colors, graphics or other special effects asking for
trouble. There are still may email clients which can not
handle messages in these formats. The message can arrive
garbled, missing certain sections, or in the worst case,
crash the email client.
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Return
Receipts... |
Use the "Return Receipt
Request" option very sparingly.
Constantly requesting a return
receipt to all your emails can annoy
your
recipients before they even read your message.
Also, it's not foolproof. Most recipients can click "NO"
when asked if the wish to sent a return receipt, and will
still receive the email anyway.
Additionally, your recipient
could have the "Return receipt" function blocked, or their
software might not support it.
If you want to know whether
an email was received it is better just to ask the recipient
to let you know if it was received. |
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Email
Privacy... |
There is no such thing as a
private email!
With some email systems, the email administrator has the
ability to read any and all email messages. Some companies
monitor employee email. The reasons for this range from
company management wanting to make sure users are not
wasting time to making sure that company secrets are not
being leaked to unauthorized sources.
Email software is like all software in that occasionally
things go wrong. If this happens, you may end up receiving
email meant for another person or your email may get sent to
the wrong person. When that happens, your private email is
now public.
Don't send anything by email that you would not want posted
on the company bulletin board. If you are debating whether
or not to send something personal by email, either deliver
it by hand or send it via snail mail. |
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Forwarding
email to others... |
All private email is considered
to be copyrighted by the original author.
If you forward a
private email to an outside party in whole or in part, you
must first ask the author's permission and include the
author's permission to post the material publicly in the
email you forward. Not doing so can not only get you into
trouble with your friends and associates - you may be
infringing on copyright laws. |
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NEVER reply
to spam.... |
By replying to spam or by
unsubscribing, you are confirming that your email address is
'live'.
Confirming this will only generate even more spam.
Just hit the delete button or use email software to remove spam automatically. Depending on your email program,
sometimes you can right-click on a spam email and delete it
without even opening it. |