February 3rd, 2009:

Email is among today’s most popular and important means of communication. Business transactions and job applications make use of various email systems. Email is, of course, not limited to professional use, it is also among the efficient ways through which you can communicate with your peers and family. Because of the important role that email plays in both your professional and personal life, it is important that you are knowledgeable about email etiquette.

Things you should not forget in your email

In composing your email, you have to remember some important things. One of these is the subject. The subject line is very important because it will give the recipient a hint of what your message is all about. Do NOT commit the common mistake of forgetting the greeting. The greeting will of course depend on your recipient. If you are going to send your email to your friend, you can use a less formal greeting. For your boss, however, you have to use a more formal one. If you are composing email for professional reasons, do not include jokes in your message.

Things you should not include in your email

If it is your first time to send an email to a certain person, do not attach a file unless the recipient expects it. This is because the recipient may think of your email as spam and may ignore or delete your email. It is necessary that you send a message first saying that you will be attaching a certain document in your next email before you send your attachments.

One of the notable events in the book world is the publication of an author’s collection of letters and other correspondences throughout his or her lifetime. Who wouldn’t want to read the letters of literary luminaries such as Truman Capote and Vladimir Nabokov? With the dwindling volume of letters sent and received and increasing usage of email as a form of correspondence, can a collection of emails be a possibility in the near future?

Collecting an author’s email

Of course, before one can publish a collection of emails, the publisher should seek the approval of the author. And because the nature of emails is diverse – from the trivial inquiries to the profound sharing of ideas – one wonders whether the task of sifting through an author’s collection of emails falls into the hands of the publisher or the author himself. Of course, because sending and receiving emails has become very convenient, the volume of emails to be read can become staggering (especially if the author is very tech-savvy).

The lost art of letter writing

People would argue that writing letters is totally different from composing emails. Many authors, however, would disagree about this argument. They say that writing, whether an email or a letter, remains basically the same, although the medium of delivery is certainly different. Regardless whether composing emails is the same as writing letters, what’s true is that emails are here to stay, and it’s only a matter of time before a pioneering publisher decides to collect and print one of their author’s email inbox contents.

Almost everyone who has an email account has probably received a chain letter. A chain letter contains a message that encourages the reader to forward the said message to various other email addresses. Among the usual chain letters you can often find in your email account are those containing emotionally touching stories, those using superstitions to blackmail you, and those containing pyramid schemes and other contents that entice you with financial rewards.

Chain letter scams

It could really be annoying that every time you open your email account, you are always greeted by a chain letter that claims to curse you with bad luck if you don’t forward the email. Though you don’t believe it, you always feel you have to forward the email to other recipients just to be on the safer side. Other chain letters lure you with emotional bait, that is, by telling you tragic stories and encouraging you to make donations. Another type of chain email is the one that involves financial investments. The chain email in this type requires a certain amount from you and promises to give you more in return. This type is considered illegal in some countries.

Getting rid of chain letters

You don’t have to suffer from receiving chain letters endlessly. There are actually a lot of ways to avoid a chain letter. One way is to break the chain; you can simply ignore the email or delete it. You may also opt to block the sender, especially if you don’t know that sender.