15 Steps to better E-mail Etiquette
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I tried to find an article or reference material on this subject material, but couldn't find anything so I wrote this information myself for everyone's benefit. I hope everyone finds this informative and useful. I have compiled a list of 15 points to bring up surrounding the subject of E-mail Ethics and Etiquette.
1. Refrain from partially starting a sentence in the subject line or typing a very long sentence in the subject line. It becomes hard for people to sort their e-mail and find what they are looking for when they want to refer back to a specific e-mail at a later time. Doing this can also disconnect or fragment the message you are trying to get across.
2. Never send an e-mail message without a subject. There are a couple problems with this. It becomes hard for people to sort their e-mail and find what they are looking for when they want to refer back to a specific e-mail later. Also many ISP's and anti-spam programs will consider this SPAM and block the message from reaching the recipient. (Definition of SPAM: Spam n. Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.)
3. Don't Cc a large group of friends who don't know each other when sending out group messages. You should Bcc everyone for privacy reasons and to prevent the accidental "Reply To All" syndrome, which can be embarrassing when one of your recipient's comments on the subject matter of the e-mail and it goes out to all your friends and family. When you use Bcc the recipients can't see each others e-mail addresses and therefore will only reply to you or the original sender, which keeps the responses private. (Cc is an acronym for Carbon copy and Bcc is an acronym for Blind carbon copy.)
4. Keep e-mails somewhat short, most people are way too busy these days to read pages and pages of e-mails especially if it sounds like you are rambling on.
5. If you are upset or angry about something and are sending an e-mail out you just wrote you may want to save it in your drafts and look at it later after you cool off. You will find that most of the time you will probably rewrite the message. Remember once you click send there is no recalling the message back. It's probably easier to offend someone inavertedly in e-mail verses over the phone or face to face.
6. Please also understand when a recipient reads your e-mail depending on the mood he or she is on can dramatically affect the tone of the e-mail they are reading.
7. Be self conscious about what you write about in an e-mail, remember e-mails have a way of finding themselves in other people's hands (Look at the beloved Martha Stewart) and it's to easy for someone to forward a message, even if it's someone you think you trust.
8. This one is more common in a corporate environment, be careful when using group contacts like All, Everyone, or Marketing, when you type the group message make sure you double check who you are sending the message to. On the flip side if you are sending an e-mail to someone named Al you could accidentally send the message to "ALL", if you were sending sensitive information to someone at your company named Mark make sure it doesn't get addressed to everyone in Marketing.
9. Many E-mail programs cache or remember e-mail addresses you type allowing your e-mail program to auto complete the e-mail address of your recipient, take a quick look and confirm it's the right person you wish this particular e-mail message is intended for.
10. Please refrain from forwarding hoax e-mails without confirming their accuracy. I have seen many people over the years fall victim of fear and mean well when forwarding these types of e-mails to all their friends and families. Examples would include Bill Gates giving away free money, crazy viruses that will delete your C drive, People with foreign bank accounts with millions of dollars who need help getting the money transferred out a 3rd world country, etc.
11. Run spell check before sending your e-mail messages to correct common typos or misspellings.
12. Refrain from sending large attachments, most ISPs prohibit people from sending attachments over 5 Megabytes in size (Slightly larger than the size of a single MP3 file). If you are e-mailing pictures you may want to consider setting up an online photo album like http://www.kodakgallery.com , http://www.snapfish.com/ or http://www.shutterfly.com. These free services allow you to upload tons of pictures for your friends and family to view and even order prints. When people order prints this is how the web site generates revenue.
13. If you are using your e-mail for business consider setting up a signature file with all your contact information. This is great way for your customers to find your phone number if they didn't put it in their address book yet.
14. Be careful with sending any e-mail that could be incriminating, I don't mean this in a bad way, but remember that e-mail is a written record that can be used against you in a court ruling. If you are ever part of a legal dispute you should run your electronic communications past your lawyer.
15. Have fun with e-mail, you can utilize Smileys and Acronyms and they are widely acceptable. Here is a website that lists over 2000 smileys http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/smileys.html To get a better feel for what they represent tilt your head to the left when viewing them. :-) Example Smiley. If you want to learn e-mail acronyms like TTFN (Ta Ta For Now) or TTYL (Talk To Ya Later) please visit this website http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/acronyms.php
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