In the short story ‘The Umbrella Man’ by Roald Dahl we get to see the narrator’s mother judging people by the look of their shoes. We find the lady’s inference a failure in the story. But emails could help frame a good picture about the sender. The framing of the email could help create a first impression. Some people type the whole mail in upper case characters, not knowing that it is the equivalent of shouting-at while in conversation. It would be wonderful if we could actually practice the basic manners in framing a mail so that the person at the receiving end of the messages is happy to go through it.

Subject Line: Use the appropriate subject line for the mail. Subjects give the first hint to the content in the mail and as such could help the receiver to prioritize the messages. It would be appropriate to change the subject line whenever a change of matter occurs in a discussion thread.

Use the perfect medium: Always use the most suitable and best available communicating service available at your disposal. It wouldn’t be advisable to send an email that for some matter that requires immediate attention to a friend who checks text messages more frequently than emails.

Question and Answer format: While replying to a mail which has many questions in it, it would be great if the answer to a particular question could be inserted just beneath the respective question.

Cc Function: It would be advisable to use the cc function only when it is necessary that the person at the receiving end has to know details on every recipient of the same message.

Make it brief: Everyone would prefer brief messages with all matter contained in it rather than long unending passages. But making it brief should not be at the expense of losing any content. Also it would be better to avoid too many communications for something when all of the required data could be contained in a single mail.

Attachments or Inline pasting: Some people prefer the matter to be contained in a mail as attachments while others would prefer inline pasting. It would be good to know the preferences of the receiver in this matter. It would be better to use available online services which help to work on the same document at the same time rather than mailing every correction and change all the time. Tools such as Google docs,Zoho and Approver could be used for the same.

Jokes and Chain Letters: Avoid sending jokes and chain letters frequently because that would be annoying for the receiver. Chances of a good joke being missed are also high in case of high frequency of forwards because the receiver is likely to either skip or delete all of it in time without even going through.

Avoid Smiley and abbreviations: It is not professional enough to use conventions used in text messages while drafting a mail. Proper capitalization should be used. Also avoid abbreviations like LOL, u, cya and smileys. Also make it a point to have a proper signature with your name in it.

Email addresses: While creating accounts try to keep the email address as similar to your name as possible. Also use your personal email account for personal correspondence. Avoid sharing your email address with anyone.