As college students, our lives are largely dependent on our ability to communicate through electronic mail, or "e-mail" as it is known to modern hipsters. I myself regularly receive upwards of seven e-mails per week. Obviously I could have said "one e-mail per day," but it sounds more impressive the previous way.
Getting e-mails is great. I always feel honored when e-mail senders take time out of their busy schedules to devote personal attention to me. Whether it's announcements from the VPSA Office, HoosTrak or Amazon.com, I'm always feeling the love. Sometimes I even get e-mails from actual people with real names. I group these people broadly into two categories, "Mom" and "Dad." Just kidding, my parents don't know how to send e-mail. And even if they did, I've already convinced them that my address is daniel@dooley.com (not that I don't want to hear from them ... it's just I've already used up two percent of my available space on Gmail and I have to be conservative).
Of course, one's first instinct when one receives an important e-mail is to RSVP right away. I used to get so excited I would instantly reply to every e-mail with, "Thanks for sending me an e-mail! I will read its content shortly and then send a separate reply that is more substantive in nature!" Accordingly, I lost six jobs in the span of a fortnight.
Following that, I realized that I was in dire need of a more concrete set of rules for appropriate e-mail conduct. After not looking and hence not finding any, I decided to write my own brief manual, reproduced below. I must forewarn you that this gets down to the nitty-gritty, the fine points of detail governing the compositional style of e-mails. If you follow the guide closely, however, I promise you will see vast improvement in the quality, and more importantly the quantity, of e-mails in your inbox.
-- Choosing an alias: Contrary to popular belief, it is your e-mail alias -- not your religious beliefs, political orientation or cultural views -- that most defines you as a human being. A good alias captures your essence, should be easy for people to remember and apparently cannot contain embedded expletives (damn you, U.Va. Webmaster). Remember also that misleading aliases can be profitable. A fortnight ago I changed my e-mail address to frankbatten@virginia.edu, and pretty soon my inbox was inundated with messages of commendation and requests for giant cash loans. Just yesterday the rightful owner of the e-mail address offered to buy it out for one grand, and I accepted. I guess you could say I'm Batten a thousand! Or you could not say that ...
-- Subject headers: The subject line of an e-mail is the first thing the recipient reads, so it should be as captivating as possible; however, do not write "Free Plasma TV!" unless you actually have a plasma TV to give away.
-- Bcc etiquette: The "blind carbon copy" function on e-mail programs may be fun to use outside of the University, but inside it destroys our Community of Trust. That's why whenever I bcc a message to someone at school, I let the other addressees know about it.
IV. Capitalization: One of the biggest mistakes people make in e-mails is adhering to ordinary rules of capitalization. Look, we're not talking about dissertations here. E-mails are meant to be somewhat informal, so don't try to over-impress your audience with fancy capital letters. It's not like not capitalizing in e-mails is going to hurt your other writing. Besides, this the united states of america and we can do what we want.
-- Spelling and grammar: Whatever.
-- Attachments: If you need to attach a document to an e-mail, never do so the first time around. You want to keep people waiting for at least 10 extra minutes before delivering the goods. Then send the conventional apology e-mail along with the attachment. This is simply a matter of basic etiquette. It's just what's expected.
-- Emoticons: While emoticons such as =P and :-\ often convey moods more effectively than words can, they are also considered tacky by some people, including many professors. Thus always consider your audience before throwing in a ;-) or a 8(|) (monkey wearing glasses), and never use more than three emoticons in a single sentence unless you want people to think you're schizophrenic. This "rule of three" also applies to consecutive exclamation points.
-- Signatures: The way you identify yourself at the end of an e-mail indicates how important you are. You should generally list every activity you have participated in during the past five years. Your list of achievements should be slightly shorter than your regular CV. If you don't have room for any of this, at least tack on an inspiring quote. That is all.
Sincerely,
Dan Dooley
"Ducks fly together." -- Coach Gordon Bombay
Dan's column runs weekly on Wednesdays. He can be reached at dooley@cavalierdaily.com.
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