Article

Electronic Writing

Everyone now writes and receives e-mails, but do we know the basics of e-mail etiquette?

This paper focuses on e-mail as the main medium of electronic writing and explains the basics of participating in the technology with "knowledge, understanding and courtesy."

Electronic mail, or Email, is the tool that allows a user to send a message internally to your colleagues over a computer network externally to other people by using the internet.

It's very similar to our traditional mail system of posting thru Nipost u use post boxes, post offices, envelopes and addresses. The difference is that instead of Nipost delivering your messages around the globe for you, messages are sent electronically to other computer users via the computer network (the internet) taking a fraction of the time to get there AND, you don't have to walk to the letter box!

How does it Work?

First, you will compose the mail on your computer, where it will be converted into a digital form, you will then forward the mail to a mail server. This mail server sorts and directs your mail for you.

What do you need?

E-mail program

Your default e-mail program is the program that starts when you choose to read mail or send a message. By far the best e-mail program that I have used is Microsoft Outlook (see later)

WEB-BASED EMAIL

Web-based email services enable you to access your email via your web browser. A web browser is required to access Web pages. A web browser is a software package that can retrieve and display information that has been formatted using HTML. There are many browsers to choose from, but the two most popular PC packages are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. You log into your email account via the Web to send and retrieve email. You do not need to install any software, There are many free web based e-mail services like Yahoo! or Hotmail,

POP3 /IMAP EMAIL

Another mail software is POP/Imap email service

With pop, you store your email on a remote server (Your ISP’s server). You can connect to the server at any time and download your mail into your favourite email software package. Generally, with POP3 mail, you download all new messages in one operation onto your local computer.

SETTING UP YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT

After you sign up with your Internet service provider (ISP), you will be given certain information that you will use to access the Internet and to set up your email account. You need details like your Username, password, email address and mail server.

Pop3 and Smtp –Difference

Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3),

This is a server of your ISP that handles your incoming mails. The server holds the mails for you until you log on to retrieve the mails. Nearly all subscribers to individual ISP e-mail accounts access their e-mail with client software that uses POP3.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP )

This is a server of your ISP that sends your mails to other people.

Consolidating e-mail accounts in Microsoft Outlook

You can consolidate all your e-mail accounts into Microsoft Outlook, so all mails from different accounts can go directly to Microsoft Outlook. 

Set Up a Web-based E-Mail Account

With free email accounts like Hotmail ( http://www.hotmail.com ) all the instructions you need to set up your account are usually simple to follow, and provided on the website.

The e-mail that you get in a Hotmail account and other Web-based accounts is not stored on your hard disk, but is kept on the account-provider's computer. That's what makes it possible to access your account from any computer in the world over the Internet.

The Parts of an E-Mail Message

An email message is made up of several parts. They include:

Header - It contains information about the sender, the routing and the time of the message. The header always contains asubject line. This is a very important part of the message. Do not leave the Subject: field blank. Always fill in the Subject: field with a brief and concise description of the content of your e-mail. This is very important in helping those you communicate with organize and manage their e-mail. Important : avoid using all caps or all small case, terms such as Hi, Help or Please Respond, or the recipient's name in the Subject: field as you may be misidentified as a spammer and your e-mail deleted.  Make the subject line of your email descriptive of the contents.

Most email programs allow you to record a signature and it is inserted automatically into all outgoing messages.

Use an automatic signature, for formal e-mail communication. If your email software supports it (Outlook does), have an auto signature added to every post from you. Be sure to include your first and last name with your email address. If it is business, add your title and/or company name and maybe a phone number with area code. This is also a great way to promote your business with every email you send. Don't make your signature so long it becomes a nuisance. No ASCII art of your face and so on. It's annoying.

The parts to an email look something like this:

In the TO: field be sure to have your contact's name formally typed. John B. Doe - not john b doe or JOHN B DOE.

  CC (carbon copy)  

You can forward a copy of your message to the user you include here. All you need to do is include their email address in this section.  

If you cannot take the time to write a personal comment at the top of your forwarded e-mail to the person you are sending to - then you shouldn't forward it at all or anything that says "forward to everyone you know" simply shouldn't be forwarded because in most cases it emanates from an Internet novice or someone who stays too long online.

BCC (blind carbon copy)  

When an e-mail address is designated in the Blind Carbon Copy field, the recipient will get a copy of the e-mail while their e-mail address remains invisible and protected from the view of the other recipients of the e-mail - some of whom they may or may not know. Never expose your contact's addresses to strangers!

Return Receipt Request (RR)

Here you want to know whether and when the mail is received or you want to know whether and when it was read, this is so intrusive, why do you want to know? In any event he can decide to tell you whether or when he received it . You do not need to know unless it is reserved for those instances where it is critical to each side knowing the e-mail was opened. Such instances would include legal and important business issues. Keep in mind opened doesn't mean read and that the recipient can decline an RR request so you will not be notified of their actions.

EMAIL ADDRESS

An address is unique it comprises your username not necessarily your name @the domain where the mails are kept - (tounoni@tomalegalretrieve.org).

Interpreting Email Addresses

With the exception of Nigerians or other foreigners who sign up for yahoo.co.uk, It is easy to interprete an email address, just like a Post Office street, city, state and zip address, email addresses have two parts:

The host address is similar to a post office address. When you send snail mail (regular mail) to someone in another city, the address on the envelope is read and that piece of mail is directed to a post office for delivery. That is the purpose of the host or email server.

The user name is separated from the host address by the @ (pronounced "at") sign. Each user name is unique to a particular host address. For instance – Toun Oni’s email address at Law would be: tounoni@law.com

You must know the address of the person you wish to send email to. You cannot always "guess" the email address.
If you did send a piece of regular mail to Toun using the above address, you may or may not know if she got the mail. If you had a return address on the mail and it could not be delivered, it would be sent back to you. In email, your return address is on the email and if your email is not able to be delivered, the email will be returned to you and you will know you have sent it to the wrong address.

Interpreting server/domain names:

Standard naming rules are used for domain names which show the type of organisations and country the people have internet accounts with, and because of this you can remember email addresses as well as web site addresses with greater ease. You can also work out where a person comes from by looking at the email address.

For example, if you received an email message from toun@environment.org.ng you could tell from the domain name that this message came from Nigeria (NG) and from a non-profit organisation (ORG)

Here is a sample of some of the standard naming rules used.

In some cases email addresses do not include a country code. This is often the case with email addresses of users from the United States but this is also becoming more common in other countries.

How do I format my message to make it more professional looking and easier to read?

To assist your reader in understanding your message without voice and nonverbal cues, it is important to format your message properly. The use of white space (blank lines) is very important.

Your e-mail messages can look professional if you use Microsoft Outlook (bundled with Microsoft office package) or other e-mail editors like Microsoft Word to create e-mail messages.

Format of messages that you send

Be careful not to send messages in a format that the recipient cannot read, check with him to be sure he can view the message you sent in the format you used in creating it, for e.g. HTML (containing graphics) and in flash (containing animation)

If you do not check with him first, what happens is that all he sees is plain text with a lot of garbage.

E-mail viewers and servers differ in their capacity to handle e-mail formats and attachments. If the majority of people that you correspond with are using an e-mail system that's different from yours, they may not see what you see.

If the recipient uses Microsoft Outlook, the chances are he will see what you see,

In outlook you have three choices for the e-mail message format:

If you send someone a message formatted with Rich Text over the Internet, they may receive a text file with an attachment called "Winmail.dat" rather than the nicely formatted message you intended to send.

If you receive e-mail messages that look like fancy newsletters (like the picture above) they were probably created using HTML.

HTML is the default message format in Outlook. HTML lets you add style and emphasis to your message. For example, you can use bold and colors to point out what’s really important, and you can even include hyperlinks. Used sparingly, these formatting features can improve your ability to deliver the message you intend. And, since most popular e-mail programs understand HTML, chances are good that when you use HTML, your recipient will see the message as you intend.

If you're sending e-mail to people that you are not sure they use Outlook, Rich Text Format (RTF) is not the best choice for a message format. RTF increases your chances of sending garbage because it's the least compatible of the three available message formats.

If a recipient has complained about getting garbage when you've sent them an HTML message, try using Plain Text format the next time you send him a message. Plain Text format is a very predictable format. All e-mail programs understand it;

Format of messages that you receive

Do you wonder why you sometimes see red Xs in your messages instead of pictures? The Xs are related to message format, too. You can control how you see the messages you receive.

By default, you see messages the way they were sent, which means that the sender controls the message format. If you use Outlook you have some control over how you see a received message, regardless of its original format. For example, there is an option to view all received messages in plain text or HTML if that's your preference

Outlook also has some built-in safeguards to protect you: Outlook will block some attachments, and it won't download images unless you specify that you want it to.

Outlook now automatically blocks certain types of attachments. This blocking helps protect your computer from viruses and cannot be changed. Although this enforced blocking makes file sharing less convenient, you should be aware that you can still use e-mail to share any file type with trusted friends and colleagues— you'll just need to take a few extra steps for the sake of enhanced security.

Of course, you always have the option to view the pictures right away. Simply click the text at the top of the message and click Download Pictures. If you are sure that you always want to see pictures in e-mail from a particular sender, you can add that name or Internet domain to your Safe Senders list right from the e-mail message. Outlook will then download pictures in mail sent from that person or domain.

Sending attachments

Documents can be attached to email messages. To attach a document or other type of digital file to an outgoing message, select Attach File from the Message menu. A standard dialogue box will be displayed. Select the document you want to send and click OK. The location of the file will appear after the Attachments. When the message is sent the attachment will be located and sent also.

Receiving Attachments

Select the directory or folder you want the attachments to be saved to. You can do this by going to Settings menu, then clicking of Attachments, followed by the box under Attachment Directory. Select a directory/folder for your attachments to be saved into. If you do not select a specific directory, incoming attachments will be saved into the My Documents folder.

Problems with attachments

And, if they don't have Power Point they couldn't open the file anyway! Don't assume your potential clients or business associates have the software you do to open any file you may arbitrarily send.

Sending unnecessary, unexpected attachments reflects a lack of consideration for the person on the other side.

If you ever need to send a file over 200,000 kb in size you need to compress it or zip it up. And, even then, business courtesy dictates you ask the recipient first if it is okay to send a file of that size, confirm they have the same software/version you do and what is the best time of day to do so to ensure they are available to download the large file and keep their e-mail flowing.

Never send large attachments without warning on weekends when the recipient won't be there to clear out their e-mail box and keep their e-mail flowing. One cannot discuss attachments without bringing up Viruses - give a client a destructive virus and your chances of forming a positive relationship will be minimized.

When you send or receive messages with attachments, you are often confronted with warnings? The attachments may be completely blocked.

When you send pictures or files in e-mail, there are a few basics you should always keep in mind. By understanding the issues and by knowing your options, you'll be able to send and receive pictures and attachments with confidence and ease.

When you double-click the attachment icon and click Open, your operating system decides which program to use to open the attachment based on its file name extension and a setting in Windows called file type association. For example, if someone sends you a Word document named "Proposal.doc," Outlook looks to Windows to see what program the file name extension ".doc" is associated with. If the computer has Word installed on it, .doc should be associated with Word; so, that's what Outlook would use to open the Proposal.doc file.

Look at the sender's name. Do you know and trust the name? Even if you do, proceed with caution.

If you're concerned about whether a file is safe, you can save it to your hard disk by clicking Save, and then you run a virus checker to see if it is safe before opening it.

You may simply print the attachment. You should know that you don't need to open the attachments in a message to print them (in fact, you don't even need to open the message).

Is Email private?

Email is not private!!! .Depending on your email provider, your email is not really your own. Most employers have specific policies on email and can read your email without your knowledge. Email messages are not simply deleted when you read them. A copy of your email can remain on the server for days, months and even years, depending upon your email provider's policies.

It is important to read and understand your email provider's policies concerning the use and abuse of email.

STYLE GUIDE

In order to make your messages welcome in the mail boxes of your correspondents, it is a good idea to learn about Netiquette and e-mail style guidelines:

When replying to e-mails always respond promptly. Responding promptly is the courteous thing to do. Please do not use Autoresponder (see later) if you need more time, longer than 48 hours, to gather your thoughts, briefly reply stating you are planning on responding in more detail and when. Don't just hit the reply button and start typing. Edit out unimportant parts of the e-mail you are responding to and respond point by point.

Always use a subject line and try and make it as relevant as possible to your message. This is the first part of the message anyone sees when they open their e-mail program and many people choose whether or not to read the message on the basis of the subject line.

Use punctuation and both lower and capital letters. Writing without these features tends, for academic audiences, to make the writer look hurried, even less intelligent. E-mail is not the same as instant messaging.

You must assume the highest level of courtesy when writing to new contacts: Hello, Mr. Bala, Dear Ms. Smith, Dr. Samuel, etc. Until your new contact states, "call me Andy" or "you can call me Mohammed", keep it formal until it is clear the relationship dictates otherwise. You will also be able to get clues by how they approach you and their tone.

A whole screen of text is not easy to read either, so try and break your message up into short paragraphs with breaks in between. White space makes text easier to read.

For much the same reasons DON'T USE ALL CAPITALS IN A MESSAGE. In the culture of cyberspace, messages written in all capitals are seen as shouting. A message composed entirely of capital letters is uncomfortable to read. It's okay though to use capitals for EMPHASIS, as long as it's not a whole message.

When writing plain text, there are other ways of creating emphasis. You can use *.* to indicate italics. This can be *very useful*.

If you want to underline you can use underscore _. For example if you wanted to underline the title of a book, _The Cat _.

Avoid negative words that begin with “un, non, ex” or that end with “less”(useless, non-existent, ex-employee, undecided

If you want to give the perception of lazy, find a previous e-mail from the party you want to communicate with, hit reply and start typing about something completely irrelevant to the old e-mail's subject. Start a new e-mail and add your contacts to your address book so you can add them with one click.

Things to avoid in formal electronic communication

It involves sending identical or near identical unsolicited messages to a large number of recipients. Unlike legitimate commercial e-mail, spam is generally sent without the explicit permission of the recipients, and frequently contains various tricks to bypass e-mail filters.

When you download free software in exchange for your e-mail address, that is trouble, Set up a free e-mail account at yahoo or Hotmail or somewhere similar, and use that address for all of these registrations.

Never send anyone an e-mail about anything if the recipient did not specifically e-mail you for that information and you are responding to their request.

Spam sometimes comes in disguise, with a subject line that reads like a personal message, e.g. “Sorry about yesterday”, a business message, e.g. “Your account renewal now due” I received a spam mail from an American company (courtesy of free software download) telling me that my “mortgage application has been approved” As I did not apply for any mortgage, I did not bother to open it, I simply blacklisted the address and deleted it.

I recall also receiving a spam “419 mail” (courtesy of free website submission in exchange for my e-mail address) I simply blacklisted the address and deleted it from my Inbox.

How do you deal with spam mails?

Never, ever, email to complain about a spam to the SPAMMER. All you are doing is confirming that your email address is valid . The role of some spammers is to send out spams solely to collect the email addresses of the complainers so they can resell them! Asking to be removed from a spam mailing list is pointless. You are better off blocking/blacklisting the e-mail addresses, if the address is spoofed, continue to filter the mail, until the spammer runs out of e-mail addresses to use, and if you can, complain to your ISP, so he blocks mails from the spammer’s IP address rather than filter the e-mail address. If this is not proper because other legitimate users use the same IP address, then complain to the ISP that sent the email to your ISP for delivery to you.

To know the sender, you must look at the email headers and know how to interpret them. Don't assume that because the spam appears to come from moron@aol.com that AOL had anything to do with it. If you don't have experience in interpreting email headers, you are better off not worrying about it; there are websites that will do the complaining for you!

Don't use auto responders!!
Many new enthusiastic internet users use auto responders to send a quick "I'll answer your email as soon as I can" response when they get an email. There are three reasons why this isn't a good idea:

It confirms to a spammer that your email address is valid.

Never use filters to automatically delete an email. Instead, use them to adjust the priority of your emails. I use filters to mark email from friends and my favorite mailing lists as high-priority, and to mark things that look like spam as low-priority. Then I have my in-box set to display my mail in order of priority. That way, I can answer the important emails first, and when that's done, I can quickly look at the titles of the low-priority emails to see if there is anything I need to read.
Here are some handy filters that you can use to catch most typical spams:
The following strings are often found in spam and rarely in legitimate email:

The phrases " do not reply by ", " believe it or not ", " to order by phone ", " to be removed ", " ?subject=remove ", " email removal ", " this is an important message ", " received by mistake ", " advertisement ", " selected to receive ", " direct email ", " automatically been removed ", " home business ", " send cheque ", " sending a cheque ", " incredible details ", " this system ", and " from this mailing list "

Don't include a filter for the strings that may appear in a lot of real emails.
ANTI-SPAM INTERMEDIARIES
An effective way to block out spammers is to use an Anti-Spam Intermediary Sneakmail (http://www.sneakemail.com/)
Here is how it works:

Lets assume you've already set up an e-mail address called (tounoni@hotmail.com) where you wish to receive mail but don’t want to give out to potential spammers
You decide to buy a software at Amazon.com. Among the information they ask in placing the order online is your email address.

So, instead of typing in tounoni@hotmail.com, you quickly set up a Sneakemail the address will be tounoni@sneakemail.com
You simply cut and paste tounoni@sneakemail.com into the purchase form at spammer .com and complete your order. You never gave them tounoni@hotmail.com, instead you gave them a Sneakemail address which is an alias of tounoni@hotmail.com.
when mail is sent to tounoni@sneakemail.com, it goes to a Sneakemail server where it is forwarded on to tounoni@hotmail.com.

If you reply to this email, it will go back to the Sneakemail servers, where it will be rerouted to order@ spammer .com, as if it had come from tounoni@sneakemail.com .

So if you start receiving spam mails on your Sneakemail address, you know exactly where the spammer got this address. Also, if you like, you can go to Sneakemail.com and delete the Sneakemail address , Amazon and you will no longer receive email through this address, including all the spam, which is probably all you are getting now anyway.

Phishing

Do you have online service to your bank account? If so be careful because Criminals have come up with a new, high-tech way to steal your credit or debit card numbers, passwords, Bank account numbers, birth date and your full name

It's called 'phishing' or 'pharming' and it works like this:

You get an email supposedly coming from your bank saying that there is something wrong with your account and you need to update account details it then tells you to click on a link within the email to update your customer information. When you click on the link, you're taken to a fake Web page, again designed to look like the official site, where any information you enter goes directly to the criminals who set it all up.

How do you know it is fake?

1. Is the Web page secure? Any time you're asked to give personal information on a Web page, the Web address should begin with "https:". The "s" stands for "secure" and is your key to knowing your information is protected. All Legitimate sites pages that require personal information are secure and the address in your browser will begin with "https".

2. Is the email addressed to you personally? Many phishers send fake emails that use generic greetings, such as "Dear Customer" or "Dear Sir/Madam." Official Legitimate sites emails are personalized with the name you gave us when you registered.

3. Does the email read well? Fake emails are often littered with misspellings, poor grammar, etc. These mistakes actually help them avoid spam filters

Example of a phishing e-mail message ,

OTHER SERVICES

Address book

The Address book lets you maintain your own list of e-mail addresses. You can also use it to set nicknames for people that you can then use as short cuts for their addresses when sending them e-mail.

Synchronizing address book (Outlook) with mobile phone entries: (DEMO)

eMail2Phone ( eMail2Phone.net )

eMail2Phone offers a service that enables you to send emails to a phone number. Your email message is converted into speech and then read out. Recipients can also reply; their replies can then be replayed on a PC.

Auto-Print
This is an add-in to Outlook that automatically prints email when it arrives at your Inbox without you having to do anything. Save time by automating those repetitive chores.

What is an e-mail discussion list?

An electronic mail list is simply a discussion group which operates via e-mail. In its simplest form an e-mail list can be a small number of people who send mail to each other, possibly a professional group, or people with a particular interest in common. Imagine that at one stage this group of people decided to formalise things a bit, and appointed one person to operate as the maintainer of the discussion. One way of doing this would be for that person to maintain the list of e-mail addresses of the other members. Then each member of the list who wanted to join in the discussion would forward their message to that one person, who would then distribute it to everyone else.

Discussion Groups

Discussion groups are like electronic bulletin boards, people can leave messages, ask questions, or share ideas, and others can respond to them. The advantage of these is that you don't need your own e-mail address, just access to the Web. There are a large number of discussions on the web which cover a large number of topics and areas for people of all works of life. It is possible to start a discussion as well, for example start a discussion group for Nigerians in Diaspora to participate and communicate with each other.

If you have an e-mail account, you can send and receive faxes using an array of companies (faxaway is one) offering the services, to send is not free but to receive with some of these companies is absolutely free

To send a fax from your e-mail

recipient's fax number @faxaway.com and click send.
(Example: 12064794429@faxaway.com)

The e-mail message arrives at the company’s Internet node in the country of operation and is faxed through their equipment to the proper destination.

To receive Faxes and Voicemail:
For many or these companies you are given a fax number (choice of U.S.A or U.K. no.) when you sign up, you automatically receive a FREE inbound fax number that allows you to receive faxes via your email. Forward this inbound fax number to your friends, family, clients and business associates to receive and view faxes on your computer. This same unique inbound fax number can be used as your new voice-mail number.

The company simply sends an e-mail to the recipient notifying him of the fax or message and you simply click the appropriate button to listen to your message realtime or receive your fax message , there is no need in the 21^st century for anyone to incur any expense buying fax machine with answering machine. Everything is waiting for you to access through your e-mail address.