Everything You Wanted to Know About Email (And Weren’t Afraid to Ask)

I. SENDING EMAIL

A. Go to your email provider

B. Click on File in the Tool Bar and select NEW

C. Type in the address of your recipient. The screen will show the following three options:
1. TO –You will send TO the person or persons you want to reach. (If it is more than one, commas must separate the addresses).
2. cc – You can also send a COPY to another person or persons.
3. bcc – You can send blind copies – which means that you can send to more than one person and each one will only see his own address listed (More on this later.)

D. Write what your message is about: SUBJECT – is very important – briefly note your topic. (Warning, if you leave this blank, the recipient may think this is an ad or a scam and might not open your message).

E. Type in your message.

F. Send it by clicking on the send button on the tool bar.

G. Occasionally, you may want to send something that you formatted without losing the format. In that case, you must attach this text to your email (more on attachments of text and photos later).

II. READING EMAIL

This will vary with the program you use. Ordinarily the unread mail will be noticeable on your screen. Click to open it and read. After that, if you just close it, it will remain, or you can delete it by clicking on the delete button on the tool bar after you select it. The mail will go to a trash folder which you can empty at a later date. This gives you some protection if you inadvertently regret a deletion. It is also possible to make folders and file the received mail. (More about this later).

III WORKING WITH EMAIL.

Note: you can only change what is actually on the screen if you have selected either REPLY or FORWARD. If you select REPLY – then just write in your reply — it will appear above the text sent to you – and then send it. To FORWARD, it is the same, but there are some additional things you might want to do before sending the email off.

IV. MOVING TEXT

There will be times when you will want to move text. You may want to write in your word processing program and then email out what you have written. Conversely, you might want to take something from an email and put it into your own document. Even separately from email, there will be times when you may want to rearrange something you have written. It is essential to know how to move text.

A. METHODS:

1. You can do everything through the menus on the top of the page, and
2. These menus often offer shortcuts that you can use directly. These require that you hold down the Control Key and strike a specific letter. For this exercise, the letters we will use will be A, C and V.
3. THE EASIEST METHOD, however, is to hold down the one of the two buttons on your mouse (read on to see when to use either one). (This does not apply to MACS).

B. THREE-PART PROCESS:

1. SELECT: In order to move anything, you must first choose what you want to move.
You can do this by placing your cursor over the material, holding down the left button on the mouse and moving the cursor over the text you want. This is called Highlighting and your text will change in appearance (often turning black with white letters).
If you want to select ALL the text, you can go to the Edit (or in Windows 7 this may be the File) menu at the top of the page and chose the words Select All – or use the shortcut which would be Control A. (The shortcut does not use the letter S because that is reserved for Save.)

2. COPY: In order to move anything, you must copy it from this place to another location. You can hold down the right button on the mouse and select the word COPY.
Or, you can go to the Edit Menu and select COPY, or use the shortcut Control C. You will not see where the material is copied – this is to a magical, invisible place!

3. PASTE: Now go to the place where you want to move the text. You are going to call the copy out of the air and place it wherever you wish. Once again, you can hold down the right mouse button and select the word Paste, or you can go to the Edit Menu and select Paste, or use the shortcut Control V. (This shortcut does not use the letter P because that is reserved for Print.)

C. Attachments:

Depending on your mail program, you will see a location for attaching files or photos. The method is to select this, then browse through your own word or picture files, selecting the one you wish to attach. The file must be CLOSED before you can do this. When you make your selection, the name of the file will appear in the attachment box. Add and send.

V. SIX IMPORTANT Rules for Forwarding Email

Are you bombarded by jokes, chain letters, and other forwarded email? Do you pass this email along to friends and family? Would you like to break the cycle? Many people are afraid to request that these emails stop. They fear that if and when they ask — no matter how nicely – they might offend the senders.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

A. Don’t forward anything without eliminating all the forwarding marks such as >>>>, other email addresses, headers and commentary from all the other forwarders. This can be done one of two ways. ‘
You can delete material by selecting it and then hitting either the backspace or the delete key. It is dreadful to make people wade through all preliminary material that was not intended for them. Therefore, forward only the “Guts” of the email that you thought was valuable. Or, you can highlight the material you wish to send on, copy it and paste it into a new document. This will not work if you want to forward photos.

B. Don’t neglect to include your own personal message. Take time to write your own comment on the top of the forwarded material – tell the person why you are sending it. If you can’t do this, DON’T FORWARD!

C. Don’t just send out material without taking careful thought. Think about what you are forwarding and if it will be of value to the recipient or if he or she shares your interests and/or sense of humor.

D. Don’t send chain letters – no matter how noble the topic. People are busy and don’t want to spend time forwarding material to others. The chain – and breaking it – has no effect on reality. In might have been fun in grade school; not now!

E. Don’t be a scaremonger. Beware of sending virus warnings because these are often untrue or even hoaxes (Check with www.Snopes.com before sending any warnings and include their information.)

F. Don’t invade privacy. When you send email to more than one person – do not list recipients in TO or in cc (copy) – but in bcc (blind copy) – because otherwise anyone with access to the list can use it to reach these people with ads or other unwanted material. This is a huge No-No.

VI MAKING FOLDERS (BRIEFLY):

All email programs offer you this opportunity to make and name categories and file them. When you have done this, you can then assign individual emails to any folder you wish. Follow the directions on the screen.

VII. EMAIL SAFETY

A. Keep your password in a safe place
B. Take care which emails you open – and this is especially true of opening attachments – especially if they end with an .exe extension. When in doubt, visit www. Snopes.com and see what they may have to say about this particular subject or sender.
C. Remember email communications are NOT PRIVATE – so never include private information like credit card numbers.
D. Delete emails regarding prizes, sweepstakes, check cashing, moneymaking schemes and any deals that sound too good to be true. (They ARE too good to be true!)
E. NEVER give out any Pin Numbers Social Security Numbers, or any Bank or Brokerage Account Numbers. If you receive unexpected mail from your or any other bank, do not reply to that email. Instead, call the bank directly from your own address book, or email them by writing to their web site – again, NOT by replying to the URL in the email.
F. Do not reply to spam, harassing or offensive mail. And do not believe or respond to letters that say a friend or relative is stuck in a foreign country, or hotel and needs immediate rescue! Call the person at home and tell him how his name is being used.
G. Sign off when finished – ESPECIALLY when using a computer in a public place.

This article was generously provided by Beverly Friend.