E-mail: Be Less Annoying, Part III
I've spent the last two days telling you what ticks me off about people sending e-mail. I have a few more in today's last installment:
* Subject short hand. When you reply or forward an email, it’s helpful if you stick one or two descriptive words in front of the original subject so the recipient has an idea of what’s in store. For instance, I use words such as “Update:”, “Confirmation:”, or “Really dumb:”.
* Keep it private. Don’t reply to a mailing list with “great idea” or “I agree.” Reply privately instead. Select a small part of the original message for context’s sake.
* Stay plain, Jane. As Jack Jackson and Mark Snyder said in Wednesday's Comments, avoid fancy formatting, gaudy colors, and flowery backgrounds. Two reasons: first, what’s cool on your monitor looks like hell on mine; and second, that extra coding increases the download time when my notebook’s using a slow 56 Kbps dialup account. And if you're using IncrediMail, with those exasperatingly annoying icons, delete me from your address book.
* Dear [InsertName]. Private note to PR flacks: If you don't know how to use mailmerge, don't use it.
I have more e-mail issues, with some especially for those of you subscribed to e-mail lists. Stay tuned.
PC World's Marketplace
PC World's Free Whitepapers
tech news tech blogs community & forums laptop prices software reviews downloads
I enjoyed reading your Tips and Tweaks although I only got to read Part III of Email - be less annoying. Thanks for the info - I had no idea that fancy colors and backgrounds would do that on someone else computer much less increasing download time. I was thinking of doing that to my computer but now I won't. I get alot of email jokes and emails regarding ex: (Forward this 5 people and your will have good fortune) I am really not into all that but my friends on my contact list are so I get alot of that. Anyway, thanks for the tips.
Sherry, when you finally get fed up with the "friends" who simply MUST share their lives with you in volumnious massive email that transmits your address in the clear (they've never heard of BCC), your course of action becomes clear:
1, Either call them up or email them and tell them to take your name out of their address book for all but truly personal messages (whereupon you will likely lose a "friend"); or,
2. Set up a filter in your email proggie to delete their email as it comes in (of course, you lose all their mail, and should they ever want to communicate with you on a more personal level, tough); or,
3. Toss your computer. Take up gardening. It gets you outside in the fresh air, and daisies don't spam.
Steve,
I hope you're going to put these tips together so that we, the informed ones, can share them with others.
(With credits, links, cigars, etc., of course.)
Glad to see you venting your frustrations, Steve. It's very good for your mental health. But I have to admit I don't quite get what you meant when you said ^Don't reply to a mailing list ...^.
Did you mean that if my daughter sends a note to me and 200 of her closest loved ones, that I should make sure my reply is addressed to only her, and not the other 200? Or did I miss your point?
Check spellings
Don’t mix subjects in one email
Done use office email for personal work
Never Never Never write an email when you are angry; you will regret it
Assume that the world WILL read your email; it is NOT private
Use email to convey information not to ask for information; talk to people
Not every email needs a reply; if you don’t like don’t reply
Remember that emails create a paper trail; be careful of what you write
Never reply to spam as it confirms your email address
Don’t assume that the recipient has an email reader that can read HTML
In a previous job, I would receive broadcast emails from management that contained instructions on how to handle a particular problem. I would save these in a folder where I could look them up. In most cases, unfortunately, the subject line provided no clue to the problem the email covered. Rule: make your subject as specific as possible.
Off the subject, when I tried to print this article for my files, I could not get into a totally printable format. Instead, I got chop on the right hand side of 6 or so characters. It is not severe enough to make the print out totally unreadable.
Back on to the subject: your tips and others' comments are most valueable. I for one must admit that I do not always make my outging Email easier to read. I not often enough fix my subject to be spefic enough that my intended readers know that can they safely discard my mail without opening it. After all, time is money! You inspired me to be more careful with my Emails.
Lastly, does anybody know of a plugin that would allow me to check spelling/grammer within
a text box like this?
Thanks for reading my comments!
Wonderful set of tips on email. What amazes me is that they are necessary to list as they are just tenants of good written communicatiion regardless of media.
The added tips by Arvind Aggarwal were very appropritate as well especially not responding when you are angry and never assuming that your messge is private.
Leave the address bar blank until you finish your message. I KNOW I'm not the only person that has hit "send" before I was done with it....am I??
If you simply must forward me a joke, cut the joke from the email and paste it into a new message. I'm not going to waste time opening an email with only the forward info so I have to open four or five to get to the original message.