Personal Email

• Personal email is email that you send to friends, acquaintances, family, or loved ones. Anyone with whom you’re comfortable, with whom you have an understood rapport, or to whom you’d make a phone call (in those dark ages before email) is a personal contact.

• Personal emails demand fewer formalities, and you rarely need to introduce yourself or explain your email’s purpose. Your personal contact should recognize your name in his or her inbox and should look forward to reading your note.

 

Rules of the Road

• Never attempt to have a heated discussion or resolve a conflict over email. If you are angry with the recipient, consider a face-to-face talk instead.

• Do not flame. Flaming is sending a mean-spirited email meant to criticize or insult the recipient. Again, if you’re angry, wait until you’re calm or defuse the situation another way.

• Keep your email clean, not only in terms of content but also in terms of grammar and spelling.

• Always strive to express yourself as clearly as possible, because misunderstandings are especially easy over email.

• Try to be concise . If your email is unavoidably long, note so in the subject line so the recipient can set aside time to read it

• Be careful about sending personal email from your computer at work. Many employers monitor their employees’ email usage and can read the contents of any email or instant message sent or received from a work computer. If your message contains something you wouldn’t want your boss to read, you probably shouldn’t send it.

• Always consider the 10 cardinal rules of email (see that section), whether you’re emailing your best friend from preschool or your new landlord.

Sample personal email:

Date: 24 Nov 2003 10:34:04 EST
From: Elaine Ericsson
Subject: Thanksgiving/New address
To: Michelle Becker

Hi Michelle,
   I can’t remember whether I told you we’ll be in town only on Friday and Saturday. We’re doing Thanksgiving with Brian’s parents and then heading to Maine on Friday morning for leftovers. (Make sure you leave us some!)
   We wanted to be in town on a weekend night to hang out in Portland, or at least have dinner with Alex while he’s around.
   Also, we finally signed the lease for our new place. As of December 15th, our new address is:
   85 Fillmore Street #3A
   Boston, MA 02109
Our phone numbers are still the same.
See you soon!
Elaine

 

Emoticons

The following emoticons or smiley faces are commonly used to convey sentiment or add tone to email. It’s fine to use emoticons sparingly in personal email, but avoid using them at work or in any professional correspondence.

:-)		Smile/happy		:-P		Sticking out tongue
:-D		Huge smile		:-&		Tongue-tied
:-(		Frown / sad		:-|		Ambivalent
;-)		Wink		:-*)		Clowning
:’-)		Tears		%-)		Silly
:-o		Surprised		|-0		Bored
>:-(		Angry		:-c		Bummed out
]:->		Devilish		B-)		Cool
O:-)		Angelic		{ } or ( )		Hug
:-/		Undecided

 

Abbreviations and Acronyms

The following abbreviations are commonly used in personal email, instant messaging, and text messaging (see the Instant Messaging and Text Messaging section) to save space and time. Avoid using them at work or in any professional correspondence.

BBL		Be back later		LOL		Laughing out loud
BFN		Bye for now		NRN		No reply necessary
BRB		Be right back		ROTFL		Rolling on the floor laughing
BTW		By the way		TTYL		Talk to you later
CUL		See you later		TY		Thank you
CYA		See ya		YW		You’re welcome
FYI		For your information		WRT		With respect to
HTH		Hope this helps		Zzzzz		Boring
IOW		In other words		<g>		Grinning
IMO		In my opinion		<groan>		Groaning
IMHO		In my humble opinion		<sigh>		Sighing