Anatomy of an E-Mail
Recipient | Message Type | Message Header | Subject Line | The Sender | Cc Bcc | Attachment | Signature |
The Recipient (To)
The email address of the person to whom you want to send your message.
The intended recipient's E-mail address. Multiple addresses are allowed, but must be separated by commas.The Message Type
| Message Type | Example |
| 1. Task Related | Information exchange |
| 2. Socio Emotional | Keeping in touch |
| 3. Newsletters | Broadcast announcements |
Message Header Information
Message header information refers to the standard information displayed in a recipient's e-mail in-box. This includes the message subject, message priority, message sender and when the message was received.
Outgoing message headers consist of six fields: To:, From:, Subject:, Cc:, Bcc:, and Attachments:. Each field holds a different piece of information. The To:, Subject:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields can be directly editedTo move the insertion point from field to field, press the [tab] key or click in the desired field with the mouse.
From: (The Sender)
The sender's E-mail address. This is usually your E-mail account plus your real name. Please quote only the relevant passage(s) from a message to which you're responding. Do not regurgitate the entire previous message thread!
In the initial interpretation of e-mail messages, that is when reading the message header information available in their in-box, not all participants indicated they were aware of the message sender.
On a postal letter you would write your address so everybody knows who the letter is from. It's the same with email. There is a field called 'From:' where your email address, the address of the sender is put. But since this does not normally change, the email software inserts this automatically for you.
Subject (Line)
Brief text indicating the contents of the message. Please use clear, descriptive subject lines. The subject is often what the recipient sees first (together with the 'From:' address maybe), so you should put something meaningful in that line, probably summing up the message itself in some words.Cc:
E-mail address to whom a copy of the message is to be sent. Multiple addresses must be separated by commas.Bcc:
"Blind" carbon copy. Like addresses listed in the Cc: field, addresses listed here receive copies of the message. Unlike addresses listed in the Cc: field, addresses listed here do not appear in the message header of the recipients. Multiple addresses must be separated by commas.A set of 4 - 8 lines of text placed at the end of a mail
message to provide the reader with the author's contact information, favorite
quote, special of the month, autoresponder/web site address, etc. The signature
line is composed and placed into the e-mail software's signature file for
automatic appending.
Attachments:
List of documents being sent along with the message. Specify these through the Attach Document command under the Message menu. To delete an attachment from a message, select it and press [delete]. You cannot enter information directly into this field.Recipient | Message Type | Message Header | Subject Line | The Sender | Cc Bcc | Attachment | Signature |
