Follow The Rules With Email Etiquette

Do you follow the rules when you email? You know the etiquette of email. Basically what they are is a guideline of a way of doing something, or not doing something that may upset another person. You may not mean to upset them, but misunderstandings are easy to happen, sometimes over something that is very simple to avoid. Following are simple rules or etiquette for you to follow to avoid any problems.

1. Before sending off that email message, take another look, make sure you don't have something on there you don't want to send. It's a very quick step and you'll be done in a few minutes and might be able to avoid a huge misunderstanding.

2. Avoid the "Reply All" button, there are most likely people who are on your contact list that really don't care to see every email you've sent out. So just reply to one person, or pick the certain people, but don't do a reply to all.

3. A lot of people hate reading long emails, so keep your emails short. You don't have to be super short, but don't ramble on and on in your message, all it does is make people delete it without reading what may well be something important.

4. Make sure that you format your replies properly, in fact be lazy when replying. Sometimes copying from an original message may seem bothersome, but if it works and makes you have to write less by all means copy that text. And add a bit of your own information, then your done.

5. Make sure that you clean up your emails before you forward them on to the next person. Basically if your forwarding something for a person to see, make sure the message is clearly there, and not hidden in a whole bunch of other crap!

6. If you're not sure send plain text not HTML. Some email programs won't allow the person to receive HMTL messages. If you're not sure what the people have who you are sending to be safe and send a text message instead.

7. Don't send or forward something that is a hoax. This is irritating to your when you receive it so why forward it to others. All it is, well it's a pain in the butt to receive something like this.

8. Scan your emails for viruses to keep it free of problems. Make sure that your not sending a virus to your friends have your antivirus software scan all outgoing and incoming email.

9. Subject lines should state what you are talking about, don't think something clever will get your message read.

10. Let people know when you have received their email. It could be something they really want you to know, don't make them wait, just send off a quick message and tell them you have gotten their message.

11. Before you send an attachment that is large make sure to ask the person if it's ok. Some people may want you to break it into smaller attachments.

12. Try and stick to one subject per email. If you talk about several different subjects it may be hard for the person to follow and remember it all.

13. Use your punctuation, it matters even in emails. Try and make the message easy to read by punctuating correctly.

14. Try to avoid those cute little acronyms, they can be confusing. LOL, IDK.

15. Avoid all caps people tend to feel you are shouting when you type that way.

16. End messages with a thanks. If you're not sure what to put down at the end of an email it's best to put thanks.

Follow these rules and it will make your email less irritating then previously if you hadn't followed these simple rules. Just remember that if you're talking to a really good friend, you don't need to change the way you've been emailing, it may be normal for you to use acronyms and write long messages. These are to be followed when you're emailing a new person, or business contact.