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Email is certainly different than letters, telephone, or face-to-face conversation. It's kind of a combination of both. Many Networked Writing Environment instructors have experimented with the way email works as compared to other forms of communication. If you have trouble getting a feel for email style, don't feel bad: difficulties are the rule, not the exception.

You've probably already seen 'emoticons' in email -- they are small faces which make up for the lack of verbal and facial inflections present in other communication. Like this:

    :)  :-0  :P  ;) :* >:-) etc.

Some people make emoticons like this: (-: --left-smiled. Don't think that using them is stupid--many times emoticons can make sarcasm, joking, or irony less aggressive looking.

Other text conventions:

• ALL CAPS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING.
• many people consider all lower case mumbling
• _Underscored Text_ indicates underline or italic
• In place of bold text, *asterisks* are used
• > Lines of text with brackets
  > preceding them show a
  > quote from a previous message.

And a few suggestions:

• Put a meaningful subject on your email. This helps those who are reading the mail you send. "IMPORTANT!!!!" or "Please read" aren't useful -- they just look like spam.
• Don't reply to a message if you're not addressing its content. If you want to send a new message to someone, use the Compose function.
• Don't forward jokes, virus warnings, petitions for 'good causes,' or other similar material to email lists.
• Don't send personal email to email lists without asking the original sender's permission.
• Avoid using attachments -- try putting the stuff you want to send on the Web instead.
• Think before you flame. (See below.)

Many people find it much easier to be more aggressive with email other forms of communication. This is called 'flaming' -- here's more about it. We've all flamed someone one time or another. Sometimes it can be fun, but it has gotten people into trouble. Generally speaking, if you find yourself writing a nasty email, it may be wiser to save the message and come back to it after a while--it's easy to write something that seems fine now which you really regret later. If you still feel as strongly, well, there you are.

Do not use your NWE account to send 'flame' messages to anyone. Hostile, harassing, or threatening email is a violation of UF's acceptable computing use policy. If you must flame, please use an account from Hotmail, Yahoo, or another commerical email service.