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Text Etiquette
a.k.a. how to not be offensive with the English language.
etiquette n : rules governing socially acceptable behavior
With the
advances of the Internet, there has been a degradation of many other things in
life. One of the greatest changes has been the English language, both
written (typed in this case) and spoken. Have you noticed that
"dot" has almost completely replaced the words
"period" and "point"?
With that in
mind, one of the biggest gripes I have concerns etiquette where it applies to
online conversations, in both the email and chat arenas. I call this "Text
Etiquette". I bring these up not to be critical of others, but to draw
attention to items that a) take away from the reader's experience, b) are
matters of courtesy and c) can make the originator look a lot less intelligent
than they think they are. If you ever get an email from me or get involved
with me in a chat, you'll see that I adhere to my own rules a very large
percentage of the time. They're points of common consideration and can
have a positive or negative effect on the person on the other monitor.
You will see
that some of these points are repeated across both subjects. If it
applies, it applies.
These are my opinions and you're welcome to them.
Chat Etiquette
DO NOT
TYPE IN ALL CAPS. - It gives the reader the impression that you're
yelling or upset. It is also considered rude. One or two words
is ok for emphasis, but those that don't know how to turn off the CAPS-LOCK
need to take a close look at their keyboard - it's on the left-hand side.
conversely,
don't use all lower-case letters. - This shows a sloppy, lazy typist.
Give yourself at least the LOOK of someone of average intelligence and learn
how to Capitalize where you need to.
If
you're going to be away from the keyboard, let the other person know. -
There's nothing worse than carrying on a one-sided conversation, and that's
magnified by the extra effort spent typing and not having it read, or having
it read by the wrong person who just happens to be walking by.
If you
are occupied, leave an AWAY message. - Ever try to carry on a
conversation when the other person was obviously paying more attention to
something else? If you're busy doing research, working on a web page,
typing an email, or any of the other thousands of things you can do on a
computer, give the courtesy of letting others know so they're not waiting
for immediate or long, in-depth replies.
If
someone else is occupied or away, respect that status. - Nothing will
piss someone off faster than someone who demands the attention of someone
previously engaged in another activity or who isn't capable of multi-tasking
and gets easily flustered.
Be
Patient. - Give the other person a chance to respond. It it's
taking a long time, don't keep pinging them with "Are you still
there?", "Where Are You?" or "Did I lose you?".
They may be a) a slow typist, b) typing a very long response, c) trying to
compose their thoughts, or d) away from their PC.
This
is
not
the
way
to
make
a
statement
or
get
attention. - It's actually a pretty good way to piss someone off.
Whenever
possible, use complete sentences. - Many times people carry on
multi-threaded conversations. A partial sentence can be a reply to
almost any previous point of conversation and may also be misconstrued.
Try to alleviate that confusion by using complete sentences and no making
vague references to a topic that took place 15 minutes ago.
Email Etiquette
Do Not Start
Your Email In The Subject Line! - We all get emails that do this...in
fact, one of my best friends is very guilty of this. For example:
SUBJ: I do not think...
BODY: ...that it matters at all, as long as they're all green
THAT, my friends, is what I'm talking about. The subject is supposed
to be just that - what the email is about. Tell the recipient
what to expect - don't lead into the email in the Subject line.
You should look at the Subject in as something in parenthesis - you should
be able to remove it and not change the meaning of what you're trying to
convey. In the example above if you removed the subject line the first
sentence makes no sense at all.
DO NOT
TYPE IN ALL CAPS. - It give the reader the impression that you're
yelling or upset. It's also considered rude. One or two words is
ok for emphasis, but those that don't know how to turn off the CAPS-LOCK
need to take a close look at their keyboard. It's also very irritating
to read.
conversely,
don't use all lower-case letters. - This shows a sloppy, lazy typist.
Give yourself at least the LOOK of someone of average intelligence and learn
how to Capitalize where you need to.
Use
paragraphs to separate different thoughts. - Quite often one will
receive an email that runs on and on for 18-20 lines of text, expressing
half a dozen ideas and two quotes from friends of theirs. If you
remember anything from High School English class, you use a different
paragraph for each thought/idea and quotes from different people are
considered a different paragraph as well.
When
including a URL or an Email address, put it on it's own line of text. -
When you include URLs and Email addresses within a sentence or line of text
they can often get swallowed up by the surrounding text, and it draws
attention away from them. Ever try to find a URL in an 800 word email,
having to read the entire thing? Putting it on it's own line sets it
apart from the rest of the misspelled, grammatically incorrect ramblings
about your friend's date last night.
Use the
friggin' Spell-Chekker. - Come on. Aside from thesecond and third
items above, the thing that takes away from the credibility of an email
faster than anything is misspelled words. By The Way - There IS a
difference between "then" and "than", just like there's
a difference between "you're" and "your" and between
"there", "their", and "they're".
If
you're using a stationery in Outlook, be considerate. - The stationery
feature in Outlook and a few other email clients is a very nice touch which
allows you to personalize your email. Bear in mind, though, that there
are two things about it that can be most annoying.
One is a scrolling sidebar, header, or background.
This serves more to distract the reader than it does to enhance the reading
of the email. Of the three listed above, the least distracting is a
scrolling sidebar as long as it's not scrolling faster than a stock exchange
ticker line. Animated backgrounds are totally out of the question.
The reader should not have to fight against a moving background to read what
you've written.
The other is music, which is generally a very lame,
poorly done MIDI file. If people want music when they read their
email, they've either got a CD going, are listening to the radio, or
have tuned in to any one of the thousands of Internet music feeds. One
sure thing that will ruin that experience is a horribly produced MIDI file
coming over your PC speakers, often louder then the ambient music, and
frequently over the top of whatever else you have going on.
One last thing - if you're using a stationery with a lot
of color, please be mindful of the color of the text. A dark colored
text against a dark background won't be read or tolerated very often.
Be
patient if you don't get an immediate reply. - Not everyone checks their
email several times a day like I do, or even on a daily basis. People
have lives away from their mailbox, which includes such incidentals as
spouses, children, meals, jobs, school, vacations, and many, many other
unimaginable things that may take them away from the extremely urgent nature
of the email you just sent.
Don't
FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Garbage. - Don't forward needless garbage.
Anyone who's been on the 'Net for any amount of time has probably seen it
anyway. In particular, don't forward chain emails. The claims
that bad things happen to those who don't are complete bullshit - you won't
die and you're not going to get a large sum of money from Microsoft.
Chain emails are for the very, very gullible. Do you enjoy getting
chain email? The 15 people you're about to forward it to probably
won't either. Do you read the entire thing and follow the procedure?
The 15 people you're about to forward it to probably won't either.
If you
must FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD... - If, for some ungodly reason, you are
inclined to forward that recipe, joke, anecdote, Top Ten List,
plea-for-a-dying-child, or ASCII-gram, at least make it look like you're not
sending on someone else's waste. Remove the 300-400 lines of previous
message headers and get rid of the carrot tops (>). The best way?
COPY the part that you feel is so important to pass along and PASTE it onto
a NEW document.
>Spend a few minutes cleaning
>it up and re-paginate the
>thing so that it's not a long
>column down the left side
>of the page that's only 40
>characters wide and takes
>a lot more effort to read than
>you're willing to spend and
>therefore you end up simply
>deleting it from your mailbox
>unread.
Listen
when people ask you to stop. - Some people just don't get the hint when
you ask them to stop sending you forward, garbage, "cute" emails
or pictures, endearing worthless poems, or chain letters. If someone
asks you to stop sending them these things, don't piss someone off and keep
sending them. Your relationship will be better because of it.
Don't
Use Chat Abbreviations in Email - The use of L8R, BRB, ROFLMAO, LOL, GF, and
UR are common in the chat arena, but if you use these - and the thousands of
other chat abbreviations - in email, you a) spend too much time chatting, b)
need to pay better attention to what you're doing, 3) are showing a lack of
common spelling/grammatical skills and 4) need to get a better life.
When
you ask / are asked for information, follow through on it - If someone
asks you for information in an email at least acknowledge that they asked,
if only to tell them that you won't be able to do it, will try to do it
later, or need clarification. Conversely, if you ask someone for
information don't expect immediate results. This kind of common
courtesy extended in both directions will help keep friction and frustration
down. By all means, when someone DOES get back with you thank them for
whatever effort they put into it...no one likes the feeling of doing
something for someone else and not knowing if it's appreciated or not.
This is the
list as I was able to compile it in my first sitting. If you have any
gripes or issues with Text Etiquette, email me and I can include it or
address them in a future update.
