California Polytechnic State University has a Web page covering “E-mail Etiquette (or Netiquette)” that has some sound advice, including these five tips:
• “Include the topic of your message in the subject area” (Many co-workers to whom you send e-mail will store it in a folder with other messages. When they go looking for what you sent weeks or months later, that subject line should have telling information.)
• “Never create or forward ‘chain-letter’ e-mail.” (This is usually a violation of University policy and in many instances, state law.)
• “Use normal, upper- and- lower-case lettering. Avoid using all capital letters in a message; this is known as SHOUTING (and very rude netiquette).”
• “Minimize the appearance of long distribution lists.” (When sending e-mail to a group of people, don’t put their names and addressed in the “To:” or “CC” fields. When you do, everyone in the e-mailing can then see everyone else's address. Some people on the list will not appreciate you passing their name and e-mail around, and many viruses replicate by scanning address books for messages that have a lot of addresses. To respect the privacy and security of those in a group e-mailing, use the “BCC:” field instead of “TO:” or CC:”)
• “Never send large attachments unsolicited and avoid the temptation to use cute or clever graphics in e-mail going to a group of people.” (If you’ve got a large .pdf or .jpg to distribute, the best method is to post it to your personal Web page and then send out e-mail with the URL. If you don’t have the time or knowledge of Web posting to do it that way, then send an e-mail asking recipients if they are interested in receiving the large attachment with more information before sending the attachment itself. Cute little graphics are often bandwidth hogs that slow up any e-mail servers, and sometimes they contain nasty viruses.)
The Chicago Tribune’s pop culture critic, Steve Johnson, has pinpointed five bad uses for e-mail inboxes:
• To-do list: Users often keep action items in the in-box. They're hard to find and easy to forget.
• Filing system: Meeting notes, project status messages, attachments containing proposals, and other important documents often sit in the in-box, instead of going to a proper project folder.
• Calendar: Dates and times for meetings, conference calls, and other appointments pile up in the in-box, often sticking around long after the appointment has passed.
• Bookmarks list: Some e-mails remain in the in-box because they contain Web addresses, or user names and passwords for Web site logins, that the user isn't sure where to store.
• Address book: Messages containing phone numbers and postal addresses of contacts sit in the in-box instead of being entered into an actual address book.
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