Module 2 : Email

With just a quick glance at the header, there is a lot of information one can gather from an email message.


Firstly, the sender's email address lets you know their username and domain name.



If it is a work email, most people are allocated their full name as their username, with the domain name being the company's name and location. eg : johncitizen@victoriabitter.com.au. (not a real email address I would hope, either way, DON'T send anything to it {you just clicked on it didn't you?})


For personal email accounts the majority of people tend to avoid using their real names as a username, in part due to privacy concerns but mainly because ilovebarrymanilow@gmail.com was just too good to pass up.



The subject line, usually located right below or next to the sender's address, lets you know what the email is about. In some cases, such as when sending files to one another, the subject line is all that is required. eg:

To: Gregmatthews@yeahyeah.com

Subject: "March Payslip".



One can also see at what time on what day the message was sent and if it is a group email, to who else the email was sent.

cc and bcc are best used when sending an email that is of interest to more than just one person.

cc allows you to send a copy of your email to a group of people, and bcc allows you to send a copy of the same email to someone without the other recipients knowing about it.

When it comes to attaching files or documents to your email, if you do not know what type of operating system your recipient has, it is best to send the attachment as a plain text file(ASCII) or rich text file(RTF) as these formats can be easily read by most applications.

Personally, at home, I'm not a big fan of emal filters, mainly because I'm too lazy to set them up, but they are actually extremely handy and at my previous workplace they were a vital tool that allowed me to organise incoming emails in their appropriate mailboxes or folders. This saved a lot of time and effort and reduced the risk of misplaced or overlooked emails.

Come to think of it, maybe I should set up some filters in my personal email account, as at this very moment I have 8331 messages in my hotmail inbox, but as it is a personal account I only ever really get emails from friends so it is not a life or death issue. At work I had filters set up so emails from different departments were sent to different folders, allowing me to do reports more efficiently as I did not have to search high and low for the emails in the main inbox.