Part of communicating online is adhering to standard rules of a polite Internet behavior called netiquette. Like e-mail and other online communication, the rules of netiquette are short and to the point. 

What to Say

Always assume publicity, even when using e-mail. Chat rooms and message boards are understood to be visible and public. E-mail, however, is often viewed as a private message. Be careful! There are many ways others may view your e-mail. Although e-mail is sent to only one person, it can easily be forwarded to others. E-mail is something that can be misaddressed and delivered to the wrong party. During transmission, e-mail travels through many different computers. While system administrators for these computers are usually upright and honest, there is always a possibility of abuse. Never assume your e-mail is completely private. A rule of thumb is never to send anything that you would mind seeing on the evening news.

Be careful what you say about others.   Never forget people on the other side of your message are human beings. Don’t be tempted to be aggressive and obnoxious because there is a piece of mechanical equipment between you and other online communicators.

How to Say It

Be concise. Be brief. E-mail and information posted online is not meant to be a letter or a thesis. Keep messages short and to the point.

The quality of your writing is important. On the Internet, you won't be judged by the color of your skin, eyes, or hair. You won’t be judged by your weight, your age, or your clothing. You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing. Clarity, grammar, and spelling always count!

3.  Use capital letters correctly. if i were to write in all lower case, i would look somewhat lazy. If I were to use all UPPER CASE LETTERS, IT WOULD LOOK AS THOUGH I WERE SHOUTING!   (If you need to make a stronger point, use *Asterisks* to surround a word instead of CAPS.)

Generally speaking, it's much easier to read e-mail, chat messages, and online postings when you leave a blank line between paragraphs.

When including a URL in the body of a message, put it on a separate line. It will be easier to see.

Feel free to use smileys to indicate tone of voice and acronyms to speed up your writing, but use them sparingly.

E-mail Specific Netiquette

Because e-mail is enormously popular and the most widely used feature of the Internet, netiquette specific to e-mail communicating has developed. Many of us use e-mail every day; let’s do it with the proper form and respect for others. Just follow easy e-mail etiquette.

Sending E-mail

Don't send large amounts of unsolicited data. Extremely large files like uncompressed photos can tie up an e-mail program for a long period of time. If you intend to send someone a large file, contact them first and ask permission. If possible, use a compression program like WinZip or StuffIt to compress the file and make it smaller before you send it.

Install a good anti-virus program and updated it regularly. When you contract certain viruses, they can take over your computer and send unsolicited e-mail to everyone in your address book. This can be not only inconsiderate, it can also be embarrassing. Just ask the minister who had a virus e-mail the address of a porn site to each of his parishioners.

Jokes can be fun, but not everyone has the time, energy, or sense of humor to enjoy them. Make sure your recipients are interested before you use e-mail to send on those funnies.

In e-mail, always create a subject line. All mail should have a subject heading which reflects the content of the message. This will help the recipient organize and prioritize their messages.

Hoaxes and chain letters are a waste of everyone’s time, energy, and bandwidth. Read my feature story on hoaxes to find out how to tell if you’ve been hoaxed and be sure you don’t use e-mail to spread these time-wasters.

Respect other’s privacy. If you send an e-mail to multiple people, don’t list the names of your friends for everyone to see. Almost every e-mail program has a blind carbon copy option that you can use to hide the names and addresses of the recipients. Look in the help file of your e-mail program to learn how to use it.

Just as there is a dead letter box for the US Postal Service, there is always the possibility that your e-mail went astray, was delivered to the wrong address, or was inadvertently deleted by the recipient. If it is important, ask for a response and/or check to make sure your e-mail has been received.

Replying to E-mail

Put your response at the top of the e-mail. The party who sent you the message is most interested in seeing your response, so putting it at the top of the message rather than the bottom is much more polite.

When replying, include enough of the original e-mail message to be understood but no more. It is extremely poor netiquette to reply to a message by including all the previous message or messages, especially if they are long. Most e-mail programs allow you to delete as much of the irrelevant material as you would like.

Check e-mail daily. Once you start using e-mail, others will assume that you pick up your messages regularly.

Common Sense and Courtesy

Just as with Internet information and media stories, you must be a discerning online communicator. Forgery, spoofing, stupidity, and even deception are possible in all forms of online communication. Apply common sense and discernment before assuming a message is valid or true.

The Internet spans the entire world. People who read your message may be someone whose culture, language, and humor have different points of reference from your own. Be careful of what you say and how you say it.

Remember, e-mail is an informal mode of communication, but how you communicate reflects on you.  You can be fast, you can be brief, you can be concise, but don’t forget to be considerate and follow these easy to remember points of netiquette.