Before You Start Writing

E-mail addresses usually look like this: abcd@mail.ru

abcd – your name or the user’s name given to you by your Internet Service Provider

@ - the “at” symbol; it separates the user’s name from the domain name (the text after the @sign)

mail – the name of the company that provides your e-mail address

.ru – the country or type of organization you have your e–mail with

(.com – commercial provider; .edu – academic provider; .ac.uk – academic provider in the UK)

E-mail addresses are organized logically: individual_account@organisation_name.organisation_type.country

The dots are used to separate the domain name into sections. When writing an e-mail address, ensure you make no mistakes or misspellings.

It’s always necessary to fill in the subject line with a concise description of the contents of the message. An e-mail subject heading is one of the first things that your reader will see on the screen. Sometimes, it’s the only way your reader can notice your letter and distinguish it from the others.

2. Write out the parts of e-mail addresses into the chart that follows.

	Individual _account	“At” symbol	Organization _name	Organization _type	Country
motomount@ uol.com.br
tatyana_ dogaeva@ mail.ru
john@british_ council.ac.uk

3. Choose the correct statement.

a) Never write a subject heading, let your reader learn everything from the message.

b) Nothing terrible will happen if you don’t write a subject. Recipients always read all the messages they get.

c) The subject of your message should reflect the contents so that the recipient would read it for sure.

4. Read the text below and point out the main rules of Netiquette in brief.

What’s Netiquette?

There are some generally known rules for sending electronic messages, which are known as Netiquette:

2) Don’t capitalize your message. This technique is usually used for stressing some important points, when you want to emphasize your idea, or express emotions. If you capitalize every word it will be hard to read and even get on your reader’s nerves.

3) Remember that e-mail is a high-speed and multicultural form of communication, some people have to write and send hundreds of e-mails every day, so be tolerant of other people’s errors. The contents of your message is more important than brilliant spelling, but, nevertheless, before you send a message, read it once again or run it through a spellchecker.

4) Messages should be concise, brief and to the point. Imagine that it’s a telephone conversation, only you are typing, not speaking. Save your reader’s time and money. Some people also pay for the amount of text they receive. Warn the recipient if you want to attach a large file. You should also think carefully about what you write – it is a written record, not a telephone call!

Notes:

1. capitalize писать или печатать заглавными буквами

2. technique техника, технические приёмы

3. stress подчёркивать

4. emphasize выделять

5. get on one’s nerves действовать на нервы

6. tolerant толерантный, терпимый

7. error ошибка

8. nevertheless тем не менее

9. spellchecker текстовый редактор

10. brief короткий

11. the point по существу

12. type печатать

5. Mark the following statements as true (T) or false (F). Correct the false ones.

A. If you capitalize every word in your message, your reader will understand you better.

B. Capitalizing is used to stress the most meaningful or emotional points of a message.

C. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are the most important things in writing e-mail messages.

D. To save your reader’s time and money you should write brief e-mails

6. Translate the text using definitions of the words in bold type.