The ins and outs of E-Mail.

Electronic mail has captivated people around the world, but experts say it often is abused, misused, or misunderstood. This medium, which almost was nonexistent 10 years ago, now pervades the home and office. The rules for intelligently using e-mail bear about as much resemblance to old-fashioned mail as the telephone did to the Pony Express.

"We're all just learning in this area, and frankly we're discovering what works as we go along," maintains Vicki Collins, an assistant professor of English and director of the Writing Intensive Curriculum at Oregon State University, Corvallis. "This is a brand new way of communicating. The biggest single mistake most people make when using e-mail is not to consider who may be reading the mail and what is appropriate for that person. Often, the communication is seen as inherently informal, since people frequently e-mail casual notes to friends. But communicating with professional colleagues, professors, or prospective employers requires more clarity and care."

Further complicating the situation is the fact that the convenience of editing, saving, and forwarding e-mail opens a can of worms that never existed before. You don't know who might be getting the message you send, or in what altered form. "In the old days, it was rare for someone to take a written letter, photocopy it, then address and mail the correspondence to some third party. That's no longer the case. With the convenience of electronic forwarding, your message may now be sent to one or dozens of people who you never intended to see it. Keep that in mind." Collins offers other key tips:

* Keep it brief. With e-mail, there is an underlying assumption of brevity. People expect messages to be short and to the point and get irritated when they are not.

* Understand the medium. For instance, only the first 24 lines of a message show on the average computer screen. Take advantage of that by confining your message to that space if possible and make your most important points in the first few lines. Think twice about attaching extra files or using them for your message because they get garbled in electronic translation far more often than the body of an e-mail message.

* Don't get lost. Many people get dozens of e-mail messages a day, which easily are confused or ignored if the subject line says something vague like "new idea." Be more specific and descriptive with the subject line so your message can be identified easily, relocated, and doesn't get...