Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/book.reviews/elements.email.style

Text File | 1995-01-01 | 7KB | 118 lines

Date: Thu, 22 Sep 1994 15:46:37 EST
From: Rob Slade <[e-mail]>
Subject: Book Review: "The Elements of E-mail Style" by Angell/Heslop


BKMALSTL.RVW  940526

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
P.O. Box 520  26 Prince Andrew Place
Don Mills, Ontario  M3C 2T8
416-447-5101  fax: [phone]
[e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail]
[e-mail] [e-mail]
"The Elements of E-mail Style", Angell, 1994, 0-201-62709-4, U$12.95/C$16.95
[e-mail] [e-mail]

On the one hand, electronic mail is simply another form of written
communications.  On the other hand, email's very earliest beginnings
lie only twenty years back.  Ten years ago, less than a million people
in the world had access to the medium, and the rapid growth in the
popularity of email, while it means there are many current practitioners,
also means that few users have any depth of experience.  In addition,
the speed and ease of electronic communications allow the unwary to
get themselves into considerable trouble.  There is, therefore, a need
for an email style guide.

That is not to say that it need be this one.  Indeed, it is very
difficult to say that this is an email guide, at all.  It is simply a
writing and style guide, and, for those in the market for such an
item, it may be suitable as a quick reference.  As far as email goes,
however, while mention is frequent, material is scant.

The content would seem to indicate that the authors, while they have
some familiarity with the use of email, have very little experience
with the broad range of online communications systems, and no feel for
computer mediated communications as a whole.  The limited exposure
shows up in areas such as the coverage of, for example, flaming (the
generation of abusive messages).  Their suggestions, while not
inappropriate, are not particularly helpful, either.  Read your
message twice.  (From experience, this just tends to increase your
determination.)  Would you say this to the person's face?  (Heck, yes!
I'm mad!)  A more practical alternative is to write it, hold it, and
then re-read the original message before sending it.  (And remember,
if the original message isn't worth re-reading, it isn't worth a
response, either.)  Another indication of limited experience is the
use of specific suggestions rather than general principles.  Line
length and font styles are mentioned in regard to terminal
characteristics, but there is no discussion of common terminal
characteristics or alternative forms of emphasis.  We are told not to
say "no" to an offer from a Japanese correspondent but with no other
examples of cultural diversity, this is of little use.

Chapter one is a list of the standard email do's and don'ts.  The
points are generally good, but the supporting text is less than
useful.  Chapter two *is* useful; a very cogent list of suggestions
for structuring email text for greatest impact.  Chapters three to
seven, covering vocabulary, tone, sentence structure, spelling and
punctuation, could be summed up in two words: learn English.  The
material specific to email from all five chapters is, in total, less
than the space devoted to one list of frequently misspelled words.
Chapter eight gives some recommendations on the use of formatting and
special characters.  Some points are good; many (such as the use of
tabs for column alignment) are not.  (Many systems use eight character
cells for a tab character, but some use other alignments and thus,
tabs can be more trouble than help.)  Most of the chapter, however, is
dedicated to the promotion of ASCII art and the use of special
characters.  The special characters are those that use the eighth bit.
These are sometimes called "high ASCII" or "upper ASCII" and are, in
truth, not ASCII or any other standard.  Fidonet echo rules often
expressly forbid the use of such characters, since they may be deleted
by mail transfer agents, be incomprehensibly different on the end
user's system, or, in the worst case, be system control characters.  A
glossary is included which would have been more useful if it had more
terms from email (IMHO) than from English class.  An appendix about
Internet posting conventions talks only about Usenet and basically
recaps suggestions made earlier.

For those completely new to email and net systems, this does contain
points to ponder, with some shortcomings in terms of practical advice.
For the B1FFs of the world, they could certainly stand to learn
English but probably won't.  For those interested in a serious
examination of the email field, this will be disappointing.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994   BKMALSTL.RVW  940526. Distribution
permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists.

DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters
Editor and/or reviewer [e-mail], [e-mail], Rob Slade at 1:153/733
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Sept. '94) Springer-Verlag


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I rarely comment on anything in Mr. Slade's
reviews, but something definitly needs correction this time. Email did NOT
begin 'only twenty years back'. If Telex and TWX were not considered email,
then I don't know what you would call them. Telex and TWX were both essenti-
ally the same product with the former having been developed by Western
Union more than half a century ago. TWX (<T>ype<W>riter E<X>change) was
developed by AT&T in the 1950's when they decided to try and encroach on
Western Union's territory.  Both involved machines with modems which had
keyboards and printers.  An operator at one end typed on the keyboard and
the resulting message printed out on the paper at the other end. It is true
the term 'email' itself came into usage only about twenty years ago and
into common usage during perhaps the past decade, but we have had the
essence of email for a long time. Long before 'every business can have their
own telegraph operator' as someone at WUTCO once commented during the Second
World War era, every town large and small had a public telegraph office.
These functioned as sort of community email places where operators sat at
keyboards entering messages which came out on the printers of similar devices
in distant cities. To be sure, we called them 'telegrams' rather than the
modern term 'email' ... but it existed none the less.

After AT&T began marketing TWX, they got sued by Western Union to force
them out of the business with WUTCO claiming the voice traffic belonged
to AT&T while the written traffic should be the exclusive property of
WUTCO ... a court agreed and AT&T had to divest themselves of TWX. That
was in the middle 1960's I guess.