I’m so chalk full of email pointers that I thought that I’d share some more. Incidentally, not all of these are as relatable to the new forms of internet communication as my last list (e.g., the idea of “read receipts” doesn’t quite make sense in something like Facebook… though they might surprise me one day with another one of their privacy-challenged new features). And so, here’s another list of email DON’Ts:

• Attaching huge files. Extremely large attachments can slow down a person’s email program and make the user think the program or internet connection is busted. This isn’t quite true with web-based email clients, though depending on the person’s email service, you still are risking maxing out their storage limit. Consider using an online service for sharing documents with others (publicly or privately), like Microsoft’s SkyDrive service or Google Docs.
• Really long emails with no summary of the talking points. I mentioned last time about avoiding really long emails. If you absolutely insist on doing that, at least provide a brief summary of your points at the start of your email (concise bullet points are good attention getters). There’s a good chance the recipient will nod off in the middle of the email, so if you hammer home your main points at the beginning, there’s a somewhat decent chance the person will understand your main ideas and hang on until the end. But again, it’s a really bad idea to start a new email conversation with an enormous email message. You’ll lose the recipient’s attention span before you even had it.
• Replying to an email and just saying “Thanks!” This one is debatable, and some people actually might like receiving one word emails of appreciation, but there’s quite a few others that can’t stand them. At the very least, don’t press the Reply All button and send a one-word reply and end up copying everyone and their brother on your email. If you do want to tell someone thanks, consider making it a full sentence such as, “Thank you very much, I really needed someone to help with that!”

And lastly, perhaps two of my biggest pet peeves, the kind that make me want to pull out my hair or jam pens into my eyes:

• Using read receipts. There was perhaps once a good use for these, back in the day when email wasn’t so ubiquitous and spam was hardly a glimmer in the eye of the con artists, asshole advertisers, and “adult entertainers” of the world. Now, however, they are seen as a major annoyance and a sign that you don’t trust the other recipient to respond to your message. Plus, since programs like Outlook let you turn off the sending of read receipts and some email clients don’t even support the concept of them, is there really any guaranteed use for them anymore?
  

  Just say NO to read receipts!

• Using email ‘stationary’ for the background of your message. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one used tastefully. If I wanted a gaudy picture of some flowery decorative scheme, I’d go visit an art fair. Using a lined sheet of paper design for the background of your message doesn’t make your email any more readable or memorable. In fact, I’m more than likely going to remember how badly I scowled at the appearance of your message rather than recall what your actual content really was. Thankfully, this tends to be more of a problem that’s internal to organizations that enforce a standard email program, as email stationary usually doesn’t translate well across differing email clients. However, it’s just as annoying to receive an email with stationary in a program that differs from the sender: the message in your inbox will more likely than not have an attachment indication, and if curiosity gets the better of you, you will open the attachment… only to be annoyed to find a gaudy picture of flowers or a virtual sheet of paper. Of course, I shouldn’t have to remind you of the danger of email attachments and how they can contain all sorts of nasty stuff that can infect your computer, so you should only open them when you’re expecting one.
  

  Tacky-looking nature images do NOT lend a professional look to your email