Email Etiquette

Email Etiquette or Rules for the Electronic Road

Email is rapidly becoming one of our primary modes of communication. As such, it has rules that can be described as Etiquette or social rules of behavior that you should follow if you are going to be considered an effective communicator. As with all etiquette, whether you follow these rules will be up to you. But, I would hope that you would consider these rules as communicate using this medium.

Avoid using all caps. It's is considered shouting and should only be used to EMPHASIZE certain words.
DON'T write email while you are upset or mad. You will regret it with in minutes of sending words written in haste. Unlike words used in oral conversation, you don't have the benefit of seeing the person's response to these angry words and adjust "on the fly". The written word seems to have additional impact, particularly when used to express annoyance or antagonism. Also follow this rule in reverse. A message that may seem to convey anger or irritation may just be a lack of attention on the writer's part. Check with the writer before you send off an equally ill-considered hot reply.
Remain brief. Email was originally designed for speed and brevity and anything more that a half page of text is usually too long.
When forwarding a message remove all the extra information such as email headers (addresses and associated information) and those irritating characters created by some email clients when you forward a message (>>>) It makes the message smaller, easier to read and shows that you care enough to remove this unimportant junk.
Although the previous rule says to remove extra information, there is one important time to not follow this advice. When replying make sure to include enough of the original email so that it can provide a context for your response. Even with multiple replies the original information can be important to both you and the sender. Most email clients will indicate this earlier correspondence buy indenting, changing fonts, or adding extra characters.
Be careful when you use humor or sarcastic tone in email. What is easily conveyed with a smile when talking, can be lost in the context of email. Use of "emoticons" such as smiley's :-), J or even will help to avoid confusion.
Avoid abbreviations, acronyms or "educationaleze" when writing. If you want to make sure you are understood, provide an explanation. While you're sure every one understands ISAT, NCLB or even BTW, you take a chance of miscommunication or even offending someone who doesn't understand.
Check before you forward information that might be a hoax. Usually a hoax will be accompanied by a message that tells to do something NOW and to "forward this to everyone in your mail box". The person who gets this same hoax for the 40th time two years after it started will start hitting the delete button whenever they see your name in the from column.
Avoid using HTML email unless you are sure of your audience. While the number of people who can't read this format is diminishing, some who receive email in this format will see a mish mash of symbols and will be unable to read your message.
You can attach items (documents, pictures, compressed archives, etc.) to an e-mail message. This feature is great . . . but don't abuse it. Staying under 500k is usually essential. Those of us who try to read email on a dialup account will be stalled while that large attachment tries to load. It some extreme cases, the receiver may be locked out of his mailbox.
Your writing says more about you than you realize. While email is regarded as informal communications, a poorly composed message reflects your knowledge and abilities.
Everyone makes an occasional typo, but consistent misspellings or poor grammar will have people thinking that you don't know what you are doing or questioning your skills as an educator.
Use a descriptive subject line. You don't have to get carried away, but a blank or non-descriptive subject line is indicative of lack of organization.
Read your email and reply if a reply is warranted. Again, tardy replies or unread messages are considered a lack of organization on your part. People don't care that you are busy or over worked. A simple reply will indicate that you've received the message.
Avoid forwarding forwarded messages on to your friends and co-workers. Yes, I realize that someone else forwarded them to you, but that doesn't mean you have to pass them along to even more people. E-mail can be fun, but don't take it to the extreme.
Be careful which you replay to a message that has been sent to a group or listserv. Simply replying will occasionally send your message back to the entire group. If this is what you wanted that's great, but a private reply sent to an entire group can be embarrassing, particularly if the message wasn't meant to be shared.
If you receive a message intended or another person, don't just ignore it; forward it with a short explanation.

Resource used to create this advice:

Pirillo, Chris, "E-mail Etiquette (Netiquette)", http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec99/pirillo1.htm
Reynolds, Kate, "Yale University Training & Staff Development Resources", http://www.library.yale.edu/training/netiquette/netiquette.htm
Essayist (author anonymous) "Spam Is Not the Worst of It", http://unquietmind.com/email.html