USING EMAIL

What Is Email?

Similar to traditional mail, email is used to exchange messages, either one-to-one (between individuals) or one-to-many (from one account to multiple recipients). Email is the most widely used service on the Internet (other services include http, ftp, newsgroups, and gopher).

How Do You Use Email?

The details of how you use email will vary depending on who provides your email account and which software package you use to access your account. However, there are some general concepts you should understand in order to work with any email setup.

Technical Requirements

To send and receive email, you will need:

1. an email account, which provides you with:

• an email address (e.g.: username@something.com),
• space on a server to store incoming messages (your mailbox),
• access to the server to send messages to other mail servers (via the SMTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

2. a software application (email client) to access your email account

In most cases, your email account will be provided through your Internet Service Provider (ISP), but you may also have an email account through your employer, your school, or another institutional affiliation. It is also possible to access email through a free web-based email provider such as Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail, to name just a couple.

The client software application you use to access your email account may be one built into your browser, such as Netscape Messenger or Microsoft Internet Explorer Outlook Express, or you may use a separate commercial package such as Eudora. If you are using a web-based email provider the client is built into the provider’s site. Some workplaces may use a text-only (Pine or other Unix based) email application. The specific steps you take to send an email will vary depending upon which of these types of email packages you are using, but in general:

Sending Email

To send email, you need to compose a message with Headers and a Body. Headers may include several fields, some of them optional. The "To:" field is where you will put the address of the person to whom you are sending the mail. You can enter additional addresses separated by commas to send the message to multiple recipients. You may also put additional addresses into "Cc:" or "Bcc:" fields. These fields send a "carbon copy" of the message to whomever you list there - in the case of the "Bcc:" or "blind carbon copy" field the other recipients of the message will not see the name/address of the person listed there. The "Subject:" field is where you can put a brief description of your message, such as: "Follow-up on 3-19-00 management meeting" or "Greetings on Your Birthday." It is a good idea to make the subject heading as meaningful as possible so that your recipients can tell at a glance what your message concerns. For example, avoid vague subjects such as "Questions" or "Request" or "Meeting."

The text of the message itself goes into the body of the message, so of course this content is up to you. In general, remember that it is very easy to copy and forward an email message, so you should never assume that what you write in an email will be private. Tips on effective email may be found at sites devoted to Netiquette (network etiquette), such as the Netiquette home page.

Attachments

It is also possible to attach a file, such as a graphic file, or a spreadsheet file, to an email message. When sending attachments you should remember that it may take a very long time for anyone on a slow Internet connection, like many home users, to download your attachment. Take note of the size of the file you are attaching, and, if in doubt, check with your recipient before sending it. It’s not a bad idea to let people know when you are sending them attachments, given recent instances of destructive computer viruses being sent as email attachments.

Receiving Email

Receiving email is usually as easy as connecting to the Internet, starting your email client, and perhaps issuing a "Get messages" command.  Once you have received an email, you can "Reply" to it, usually by selecting a button in your email application.

One Special Use of Email: Mailing Lists

Along with messages sent between individuals, email is also used to participate in electronic, ongoing discussions called "mailing lists." Yahoo Groups is an example of a mailing list service where some of the work that users have to do in traditional email lists has been taken over by Yahoo Groups. Mailing lists are also commonly referred to by the names of the specific software that maintain them: e.g. listserv, listproc, Majordomo, etc. There are thousands of mailing lists in existence, some publicly accessible, others open only to members of a particular group - such as the workers in one department at a company, or the users of one kind of software, or the students in a particular class. Mailing lists work like this: one subscriber sends a message (posting) to the list address, and the list software automatically distributes the message to all other members on that list. In most cases, other subscribers can "reply" to the message by replying to the list: their message is then distributed to all the other subscribers. Other replies may follow, with the entire list again receiving the additional comments. In this way discussions are carried out among multiple participants.

When you subscribe to a list you should receive a standard email message, welcoming you to the list and describing how the list works. Save this message, so that you will know how to unsubscribe from the list, should you decide to do so. One important thing to keep in mind about lists is that every list will have two addresses. One is the list's "administrative" address, and this is where you should send commands such as subscribe or unsubscribe. The other address is the "list" address, where you should send only the messages you intend to be distributed to every other subscriber to that list.

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