Email Etiquette

During the late 1970's, Charles Oropallo designed and put a system online called Access-80 for the purposes of sharing information and communicating through email.

Charles discovered then (and remains still convinced today) that email is, without a doubt, one of the worst forms of modern day communication. When it works it works well. However, no email provider can guarantee email will work on every device every moment of every day. As a provider, we make our best efforts to keep everything working as well as possible.

Another shortcoming is that email is often misunderstood as it lacks inflection. Most often that's because people are in a hurry. We increasingly don't even take the time to write our thoughts fully or read others' emails entirely.

Only text messaging is worse than email. In any event, email is definitely here to stay, so we simply need to get better at how we use it!

Be sure the "Address:" field contains the correct address of your intended recipient: I know it really seems like common sense and not worth mentioning, but you'd be surprised at how many people "guess" at the email address of the recipient expecting the mail server at the other end will just figure it out. Servers are exact and if the email address is misspelled or otherwise incorrect, your email will not arrive. The most common mistakes we see here are:

Be sure the "Subject:" field accurately reflects the content of your email: This makes it easier for both the sender and receiver to identify messages and keep them organized.

Limit the topic: If you want to ensure that any questions about the topic are responded to, keep the message simple and stick to expecting one answer about one question. Otherwise, people generally do not answer all that you ask.

Be courteous: Make sure your e-mail includes a courteous greeting and closing. Email doesn't have a voice inflection, so make sure your written words do not seem demanding (such as when you USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS) or terse (such as when you treat email like text messages).

Include previous message: Be sure you are including all relevant details or information necessary to understand your request or point of view. Generalities can many times causing confusion and unnecessary back and forths.

Signatures: Even though you think that your recipient knows who you are, it is polite to include a “signature” at the end of your message — your name, affiliation, phone number and (perhaps) address.

Use attachments wisely:
Attachments are a convenient way to share files with colleagues. They are not meant to distribute information to large numbers of people. Sending a giant file to a huge group of people is both wasteful and rude. It takes up bandwidth, and for many people who might read the message over a modem, it takes up time. As a general rule, send attachments only to colleagues you know well.

Email does not replace the phone: Messages that require immediate attention or response are best dealt with in a phone call. Do not assume that people are checking their email every few minutes.

Replying to messages:
When replying to an email message, check the list of recipients. If the message you received went to more than one recipient, your reply will go to ALL of those recipients as well if you reply to ALL.

Use caution: Email is easily shared with the public, so be careful what your message contains!