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Enclosure file: MAIL (fwd)
Bret Diamond (diam9018@TAO.SOSC.OSSHE.EDU)
Sat, 2 Dec 1995 22:11:21 -0800
This came to another list I'm on--thought it would be helpful.
Bret
P.S. There are two parts
>
> A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE EMAIL - SUMMARY
>
> Thanks to : Kaitlin Duck Sherwood ducky@webfoot.com
> _______________________________________________________________
>
> So here are my rules of thumb for good email style:
> * Provide your audience with adequate context:
> + Quote the email to which you are responding
> + Avoid pronouns
> * Be aware of page layout issues. Try to use:
> + Short paragraphs
> + Lines under seventy-five characters
> + Email under twenty-five lines
> * Find replacements for gestures and intonation:
> + Smileys
> + Asterisks
> + Capital letters
> + Typed-out vocalizations
> + Whitespace
> + Lower-case letters
> + Creative punctutation
>
> Hopefully these suggestions will be useful to you as you start
> your emailing career! :-)
>
> Last modified 10 Dec 1994
>
> This document is in the public domain. You may copy it,
> modify it, shred it, mail it to your neighbor, put it on a telephone pole,
> tack it up on a bathroom wall, or anything else that you feel like doing with
> it. Some credit would be nice but is not necessary.
> A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE EMAIL:
> INTONATION
>
> Kaitlin Duck Sherwood ducky@webfoot.com
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> While you cannot make your voice higher or lower, louder or softer to
> denote emphasis, there are games you can play with text to convey
> vocal inflection.
>
> Light Emphasis
>
> If you want to give something mild emphasis, you should enclose it in
> asterisks. This is the moral equivalent of italics in a paper
> document.
>
> Instead of:
>
> I said that I was going to go last Thursday.
>
> Say:
>
> I *said* that I was going to go last Thursday.
>
> Or:
>
> I said that I was going to to go last *Thursday*.
>
> Which of the above two you choose depends upon whether you are adamant
> about the committment you made or adament that you didn't mean
> Wednesday. (Restructuring the sentence to remove the ambiguity would
> be an even better idea.)
>
> You can also capitalize the first letter only of words to give light
> emphasis:
>
> While Bob may say that you should never turn it past
> nine, this is not Cast In Stone. It will explode
> if you turn it up to eleven, but anything under ten
> should work just fine.
>
> I tend to use first-capitals to refer to things that are somehow
> dogmatic or reverential. This is probably a holdover from all the
> capital letters that are tossed around in The Bible.
>
> Strong Emphasis
>
> If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and
> toss in some extra exclamation marks. Instead of:
>
> > Should I just boost the power on the thrombo?
> No, if you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat
> the motors and it might explode.
>
> Say:
>
> > Should I just boost the power on the thrombo?
> NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat
> the motors and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!
>
> Note that you should use capital letters sparingly, as it conveys the
> message that you are shouting. It is totally inappropriate to use all
> capital letters in a situation where you are calm. Don't do this:
>
> HEY, I JUST WANTED TO SEE IF YOU HAD MADE ANY
> PROGRESS ON THE PHROCKMEIJER ACCOUNT. STOP
> BY AND SEE ME SOMETIME.
>
> Oooooooh, I HATE that.
>
> EXTREME Emphasis
>
> If you really want to emphasize something, you can go wild:
>
> If you are late this time, I swear upon my mother's
> grave that I will never, *never*, *NEVER*,
> >>!!**NEVER**!!<< talk to you again.
>
> Use this sparingly.
>
> Mutter Equivalents
>
> In person, there are a number of ways that you can indicate that a
> communication is private and not to be repeated. You can lower your
> voice, you can look to your right and to your left either with your
> eyes or with your whole head, and you can lean closer to the other
> person. While these obviously make it more difficult for someone to
> overhear, these signals are so ingrained that we might use them even
> if there is nobody around for miles. Unfortunately, lowering your
> voice is hard to do in email.
>
> While it is a bad idea to assume that nobody will ever ever see the
> email you send, what I do in cases like this is to write what I really
> think and then write down the sanitized version:
>
> My boss got fired I mean resigned today, which
> *totally* sucks err.. will lead to enhanced
> relations between Engineering and Test.
>
> "Erasure marks" - either ^H or ^? - can also be used here:
>
> My boss got fired I mean resigned today, which
> *totally* sucks^H^H^Hwill lead to enhanced
> relations between Engineering and Test.
>
> Something else that I will do sometimes to denote the "lowering of
> voice" is to type without capital letters and maybe use parentheses:
>
> psssst!
> hey wendy!
> guess what?
> I GOT THE JOB!!!! :-D :-D !!
>
> Ducky Last modified 10 Dec 1994
> _________________________________________________________________
> A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE EMAIL:
> GESTURES
>
> Kaitlin Duck Sherwood ducky@webfoot.com
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> While you are unable to accompany your words with hand or facial
> gestures, there are several ASCII stand-ins for gestures.
>
> Smileys
>
> A facial gestures can be represented with "smiley": an ASCII drawing
> of a facial expression. The most common three are
>
> :-)
> ;-)
>
> and
>
> :-(
>
> (To understand these symbols, turn your head counter-clockwise and
> look at them sideways.)
>
> While people will have slightly different interpretations of the exact
> difference between the upper two, my personal opinion is that the
> upper one means more "I'm happy" and the lower one means more "I'm
> kidding".
>
> Typical examples:
>
> Hey, guess what - I got the left-handed
> thromblemeister spec done ahead of time! :-)
> I'm on my way to fame and fortune now! ;-)
>
> The second smiley, the ;-), indicates that you don't really believe
> that your boss will give you that big raise. It is similar to but not
> as fierce a rebutal as a "NOT!" appended to the end of a sentence:
>
> Hey, guess what - I got the left-handed
> thromblemeister spec done ahead of time! :-)
> I'm on my way to fame and fortune now! NOT!
>
> There are a wide range of ASCII gestures available to you, from ill
> %^P to angry >:-< to astonished :-o, limited only by your imagination.
> There is a whole Smiley dictionary out there if you are feeling
> uncreative. (Note: I personally think that some of the Smiley
> Dictionary definitions of the basic smileys aren't a totally accurate
> reflection of the way I see smileys used, but your milage may vary.)
>
> Pause Equivalents
>
> Imagine that you ask someone if you can turn the gain up to ten and a
> half. He says, "Well", then pauses for a long time, scratches his
> head, looks down at the floor, winces, grits his teeth, and says
> again, "Well", then pauses and says, "It might not explode". You'd get
> a sense of just how bad an idea it would be, while the text:
>
> Well, it might not explode.
>
> gives less information. I like to use lots of whitespace and typed-out
> vocalizations of "I'm thinking" sounds, as follows:
>
> Weeeellllll.... errr hem.
>
> Wellll, it *might* not explode.
>
> You can also use whitespace to make it more clear which words belong
> to which clause. For example, the following is very difficult to parse
>
> Did you want to use a left-handed thromblemeister or a
> right-handed one with a half-twist or a Jackadoody brocket?
>
> You could instead say:
>
> Did you want to use
> a left-handed thromblemeister
> or
> a right-handed one with
> a half-twist
> or
> a Jackadoody brocket?
>
> or
>
> Did you want to use
> a left-handed thromblemeister
> or
> a right-handed one with a half-twist
> or
> a right-handed one with a Jackadoody brocket?
>
> as appropriate. My mom goes one step further, and suggests hauling out
> Mrs. Grundy's notes on outlines:
>
> Did you want to use:
> 1. a left-handed thromblemeister
> or
> 2. a right-handed one with a
> a. half-twist
> b. Jackadoody brocket
>
> Creative Punctuation
>
> I tend to use a lot of punctuation in what I call "comic book style".
> Instead of saying:
>
> I am very confused and a little upset. Why did
> you give my report to Jack instead of Jill?
>
> I'd say:
>
> ???!??! Why did you give my report to Jack
> instead of Jill?!?
>
> The question mark is kind of shorthand for a furrowed brow or a
> "huh?". The exclamation mark is shorthand for amazement and possibly a
> scowl. The two together seem to mean astonishment.
>
> There is a long and proud tradition of using punctuation as a
> placeholder for swearing, e.g. That #%(*! You will also sometimes see
> an asterisk in place of important letters, usually the vowel, e.g.
> That son of a b*tch! or That son of a b****! or very rarely That s*n
> of a b*tch!. (In actual practice, this form of self-censorship is
> rare; it is more common for people to either use the whole word or
> omit it completely.)
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Last modified 10 Dec 1994
>
> This document is in the public domain. You may copy it, modify it, shred
> it, mail it to your neighbor, put it on a telephone pole, tack it up on a
> bathroom wall, or anything else that you feel like doing with it. Some
> credit would be nice but is not necessary.
>
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