What E-mail is and What it Can Do

E-mail stands for electronic mail. It is a messaging system used to communicate around a local office, between offices or over the Internet. E-mails are permanent, that is they will be stored somewhere until deleted, usually by the recipient.

From your office you can send E-mails to anyone with a PC and E-mail address within your building, to other offices in your company, and to anyone in England or the rest of the world with a valid Internet mail address.

Note that E-mail is designed for the delivery/reception of text-based messages, although other file formats , e.g. graphics files and spreadsheets etc. can be sent as attachments.

Why use E-mail?

• It is much cheaper to send an E-mail than a letter.
• It is much cheaper than a long distance phone call.
• It saves paper and raises productivity within the office environment.
• Replies can be formulated at leisure and are easily sent (no searching for addresses).
• Messages are usually delivered within minutes of being sent.
  Note that there may be a delay in the recipient gathering the message, or a delay in him/her reading it. Many people only read mail first thing in the morning.

Be aware that some mail servers only poll for new mail at intervals, say one hour, which may cause a delay in the recipient getting his mail.

Mail Addresses

This is what a typical Internet Mail Address looks like:

john.smith@company.com

Some Guidelines:-

Always use a subject heading. This allows the recipient to sort incoming messages.

Be careful with language/sarcasm. E-mails are easily traced to source, and can be easily printed out and used against you.

Try not to use Upper case throughout your message. Some people consider this an ELECTRONIC FORM OF SHOUTING.

Avoid bad punctuation/grammar/spelling. This reflects badly on you and the company.

Try to be brief. Rambling mail messages are often ignored.

Don't bombard people with useless mail messages. This will devalue the whole system, and lead to people ignoring important messages. This is particularly relevant to local mail. Mailing a distribution list can easily end up with people receiving (and having to delete) messages they are not interested in...

Some Common Abbreviations