The Email

Overview

One major use of the Internet is what every business concedes improves productivity – electronic mail (email). The conventional methods of sending and receiving mail within an organization are inefficient and normally involve:

• the need for a secretary to type the document
• printing
• proof-reading
• re-printing
• sending it through the internal/external mail system

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• identify different parts of an email
• apply netiquette in sending and receiving emails
• state advantages of the email
• state disadvantages if the enail

Elements of an Email Message

The elements of a typical email message may be classified under header, body, and signature. The details of the sections are explained as:

The Header

1. Sender. The email address of the person who sent the message appears in the textbox of From:

2. Recipient. If you are receiving the message, your email address probably would appear here. …, , e.g. iighana@iucg.edu.gh in the textbox of To:

3. Enter additional addresses of any other recipient you wish to receive and act on the message. Introduce a single space or a semicolon to separate each address.

4. In the Courtesy Copy (Cc) textbox enter email addresses of any other recipient who are not obliged to act on the main message.

5. The Blind Courtesy Copy (Bcc) is similar to the Courtesy Copy. It is however used for sending a copy of the message to recipients confidentially without the other addressees being notified that this has been done.

6. Subject Line. What is the email about? .. In the Subject Line textbox you type a brief subject heading for the message. This practice is a recognized protocol.

7. Use the attachment button to sent documents prepared in other applications.

Body of Email

The advent of the Internet has created a virtual global village, bringing together people from all walks of life with varying backgrounds. A set of rules has emerged as a convention to regulate the sending/receiving of message through the email. The convention is known as netiquette. It requires that you

• Type a subject for all messages.
• Keep the message brief and concise.
• Check spelling and grammar.
• Avoid upper case or lowercase throughout body of message
• Properly sign your message. Properly identify such as providing your name and any contacts.
• When you receive an email you are expected to acknowledge or respond to it. This does not apply to unsolicited adverts or junk mails often referred to spam.

Signature of Email

The Signature section of an email has the following parts:

• Closing. End your email message that will suggest no message comes after it.
• Signature. Use names known to the recipient of your message. Provide additional contacts that will enable the reviepient to contact you without necessarily using your email.

Advantages of the email

This traditional method is seen by many, as slow and can be open to security breaches. A faster method and relatively more secure method of sending information is to use the email where messages are sent in an instant. The main advantages of the email are:

• It is relatively much cheaper than using the telephone.
• Many types of data can be transmitted, such as images, document, speech, video, etc.
• It is faster than the postal service.
• It is much faster than the postal service.
• It normally cuts out the need for work to be typed, edited and then printed by a secretary.
• It reduces the burden on mailroom.
• It is relatively easy to send to groups of people. Previously, either a circulation list was required or a copy to everyone in the group was required.
• In many cases it is possible to determine if the recipient has indeed ‘opened’ the message. The email can be activated to acknowledge messages delivered.

Disadvantages of the Email

In spite of its numerous advantages, the email has disadvantages which include:

• It cannot be accepted as a legal document. Messages received can be manipulated.
• Not everyone reads the email on a regular basis.
• Parcels cannot be delivered through email.
• It is a medium through which viruses infect computer systems.
• Messages can be sent on the ‘spur of the moment.’ In extreme cases, messages are delivered to the wrong persons.
• Email cannot be used in remote areas where there is no Internet connectivity.

Email Netiquette

These are guidelines that can help you avoid mistakes and communicate better and more efficiently with email.

Use email the way you want others to use it. Remember that a human being (just like you) is at the other end reading your email, and don’t write anything you wouldn’t say face to face.

Subject of an Email
1. Email should have a subject heading which reflects the content of the message.

2. Think of your subject line as the headline of an important news article. Make sure the subject line relates to the message content.Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you receive

Composition of Email
1. Use the inverted pyramid form of writing.

2. Start your most important statements in the first paragraph.

3. Keep paragraphs short for easy reading, and use sub-topic headings within your email message if it is lengthy. When in doubt, send plain text messages, and not HTML.

4. Avoid fancily formatted emails due to the size and formatting of such messages.

5. Keep your message concise and short.

6. You should not send heated messages (“flames”) even if you are provoked.

7. Take another look before you send the message, and reread and reconsider the entire message, also from the recipient’s perspective, before you send it.

8. Consider the recipient’s background. Remember that the recipient is a human being whose culture, language, and humor have different points of reference from your own.

9 Remember that date formats, measurements, and idioms may not travel well. Be especially careful with sarcasm.

10. When replying to a message, include enough original material to be understood but no more. It is extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material.

Chain Messages
A chain email is a message hat attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. Distribution of such messages grow exponentially and can not be sustained indefinitely.

1. Avoid sending chain letters via email. Chain emails are often hoaxes and may contain computer viruses. It’s generally a waste of bandwidth and time.

2. Forward messages as you received them. If you are forwarding or re-posting a message you’ve received, do not change the wording.

Use Mixed Case
1. Do not use upper case throughout the email message – UPPER CASE LOOKS AS IF YOU’RE SHOUTING.

2. Do not use lower case throughout the email message – lower case looks as if you’re timid.

Cost of Email

1. The cost of delivering an email message is, on the average, paid about equally by the sender and the recipient (or their organizations).

2. his is a fundamental economic reason why unsolicited email advertising is unwelcome and is forbidden in many contexts.

3. Sending someone email may also cost them in other specific ways like network bandwidth, disk space or CPU usage.

4. Sending large files may make your message so big that it cannot be delivered. Consider file transfer or sharing as an alternative, or cutting the file into smaller chunks and sending each as a separate message.Don’t send large amounts of unsolicited information or attachments to people.

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