[Introduction] [What
Makes Email Different?] [Context]
[Format] [Page
Layout] [Intonation]
[Gestures] [Status]
[Formality] [Greetings
and Signatures] [Summary]
[Appendix A: Acronyms and Jargon]
[Appendix B: Domain Names]
[Appendix C: Bibliography]
A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email
Gestures
Kaitlin
Duck Sherwood Not only does text lack the emotional cues that
vocal inflection gives, text lacks cues from body language. There
is no twinkling of the eyes to say you are kidding, no slapping
the back of your hand in your palm to show urgency or frustration,
no shoulders slumping to display discouragement.
While you are unable to accompany your words with hand or facial
gestures, there are several textual stand-ins for gestures.
Smileys
A facial gestures can be represented with what is called a "smiley"
or "emoticon": a textual 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. You should see little faces.)
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 think I'm being funny". The last one is pretty universally understood
as "I'm sad".
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 or trendy a rebuttal 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 are whole
Smiley Dictionaries out there
if you are feeling uncreative. (Note: I 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 mileage may vary.)
Pause Equivalents
Imagine that you ask someone if you can turn the knob up to ten and
a half. Suppose 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 haul out your high school 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
The only problem with using an outline like this is it invites people
to send back messages that have nothing in them but the code for the
answer they want, such as
2b.
To avoid that, you can use a structure like:
Did you want to use a
left-handed thromblemeister
or
right-handed one with a half-twist
or
right-handed one with a Jackadoody brocket?
This invites people to cut-and-paste the exact, full thing they want:
> a right-handed one with a 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 would probably 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
place holder 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.)
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