Learn to use e-mail the right way

This page does not teach the newbies how to open, read and send e-mails. Nor does it teach how to attach something to e-mail or how to open e-mail attachments. If you do not know these basics, I am afraid you'll have to learn them somewhere else. This page is intended to teach the inexperienced users how to use e-mail the right way.

I'll just mention a few points randomly as they come to my mind. There will be a few things that are outright wrong things to do, and few things that are supposed to improve the quality of your e-mail correspondence and make them look more professional or formal. Some people will argue, e-mails are not supposed to be formal. In my opinion, since e-mails have practically replaced most old fashioned, on-paper, typed correspondence, they better be formal (at least to some degree - you don't have to begin with "Dear Sir" but at least write "Hi Shoban"). If you really want to be informal or casual you better use texting. It is upto you to accept or reject my suggestions. But I'll tell you this: If you e-mail me for any reason please remember I have my own judging standards. I get dozens of e-mails everyday. Sometimes I don't even open an e-mail, sometimes I don't read the mail after opening it - one glance and I hit the delete button, yet at other times I read it but don't bother to reply to it. First impression is very important to me. I am sure many busy people sort their e-mails the same way I do!

Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Do you care about your privacy? Are you afraid of spam e-mail? Please try to understand that just like you, lots of other people also care about their privacy and are afraid of spam. So when you send out that electronic circular to 10, 15 or 20 people, write your own address in the "To" field and write everybody else's address in the "BCC" field. Most people either write everybody's address in the "To" field or write just one person's address in the "To" field and everybody else's address in the "CC" field. Both of these are wrong, because when you do that everybody can see everybody else's address. By exposing everybody's e-mail address, you are violating everybody's privacy and exposing everybody to the risk of getting spam! When you address that circular to yourself and write all the recipients' address in the BCC field, everybody can only see your address (which also appears in the "From" field anyway) and cannot see anybody else's address. In fact, none of the recipients of your circular will even know who else has received it! Clear?

• Always write what your e-mail is about on the Subject line. Never leave it blank and don't write stupid things like "Hi" on the Subject line. Have you noticed when somebody replies to your e-mail having a blank Subject line, the Subject of the reply reads "Re: (No subject)"? Don't you then feel like a stupid?

• When somebody replies to your e-mail and again you reply to it and the other party replies again - this way the same message goes back and forth several times - please change the subject every now and then. Otherwise, it gets very boring. I have seen peoples e-mail where the Subject line reads Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: (No subject). Honestly, no exaggeration!

  Note: Unless you write what this e-mail is about on the Subject line, it will be very difficult to retrieve a particular e-mail from your "old mail" box, should it become necessary in the future.

• You are not required to use smileys in your e-mail. You may use them if you want but when you do please use them sparingly. I have seen some people just go crazy with them. Looks so cheap!

• Same applies with LOL or lol. I think some people think these are mandatory things in e-mail. Do you use them in handwritten or typed correspondence?
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• If your style is "how r u?", "go 4 it", "saw ur pix", "coz i m nt gud at dat", "tank u", "TUVM", "by" (for bye), and so forth, please don't send me e-mail under any circumstances. I do not, cannot, and will not read them.

• No e-mail rule book has ever said anywhere that you have to use only lower case letters in e-mails and never capitalize - not the first letters of sentences, not the first letters of proper nouns, etc. If you see such rules in any rule book, I would like to see it. I do not understand why it is so difficult to spell out each word, follow the rules of grammar, and use proper punctuation marks in e-mails. I suspect those who do not follow the rules of English language in e-mails are actually trying to hide something!

• Similarly, I do not understand why some people always use ALL CAPS in e-mails. I have read in e-mail etiquette (Netiquette) books that ALL CAPS signifies SHOUTING and hence should be avoided. Shouting or not, I just cannot read a chunk of text written in ALL CAPS!

• When attaching photo(s) to an e-mail, please first reduce the size of the photo and optimize it for the Web using a photo editing software. Do not send the original size photo as you have downloaded from your digital camera. The original photo size is too big for transferring via e-mail and viewing on the monitor. The photo size for sending as an attachment to an e-mail should be no larger than 600 pixels X 400 pixels, preferably smaller like 400 px X 300 px. These photos can be easily viewed on a monitor without the need of vertical or horizontal scrolling. The file size of each photo should be less than 500 KB (200 - 300 KB is more desirable). Your original photo size could easily be 2272 X 1704 or even bigger, and the file size could be 3/4 MB or even larger.

• Please do not forward chain mails or other kinds of mail that circulates in the Internet. These may be jokes, pictures, or other kinds of special/unusual creations by tech-savvy persons. You may not realize, but many people (including myself) view them as sheer nuisance. If you have nothing else to do with your e-mail program, just don't use it. Surf the Web and visit interesting Web sites!

• Just because you can, do not use those awful looking fonts, font colors, and HUGE font sizes in your e-mail to show off your capabilities. If you do not know the fact already, hear from me: just about everybody can do these things. You are not the only person with these capabilities. Special fonts, their styles (italics, for example), and font colors should be used only in special cases such as an electronic Invitation Card for your granddaughter's birthday party, Christmas Cards, etc. For regular, everyday correspondence it is best to stick to a few standard and common fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier, stick to the standard correspondence colors like black and blue, and standard font size that is automatically shown as default size unless you or your recipient is legally blind! Sometimes, when replying to somebody, and when your reply contains a copy of the original mail, it may make sense to use a different font color, so that the recipient can instantaneously recognize which part of the mail is original and which part is the reply.