Rules of etiquette which govern the telephone and the mail have long been established and adhered to by society, but rules of etiquette regarding email are as new and unexplored as the method of communication itself.

To assist you in your communications, here are some basic guidelines for interacting via email within the workplace, as dictated by Boardwatch Magazine, July 2000.

Be exceptionally polite and more effusive than you would in ordinary speech. Begin with phrases like "Thank you for writing," and "We are grateful for the opportunity."

Don’t send an impassioned email in response to a negative comment or experience. Sending and receiving email messages is virtually instantaneous and your response and comments can not be "taken back." In other words, the damage will have been done.

Remember that an email message is still a written form of communication and must be treated as such regarding capitalization, spelling and grammar. Proofread all email communications thoroughly before sending them.

Make the subject line specific. Dull or generic subject lines risk being ignored or deleted by hurried staff members scanning a sea of messages.

Address and sign your emails. Even though the sender’s name, as well as the name of the person to whom the message was sent, appears electronically it makes the message appear more personalized if you customize the beginning with the person’s name. For example: "Dear Amy," or simply, "Amy."

Don’t type in all CAPS. The message will appear unnecessarily intense and you may give the impression of being too lazy to type upper and lower case sentence structure.

When replying to or forwarding an email, clean up the document. If you received the original message from a chain of twelve others, the recipient does not need to see this. Use the "BC:" or "blind copy" command more often than the "cc:". Delete unnecessary "" and "s", "Memo To", subject lines, addresses and dates. And don’t overuse the "cc:" command to cover your tracks. You appear to be a powerless tattletale and problem perpetuator, not solver.

When replying to a question, copy only the question into your email, then provide your response. You don’t have to hit "Reply" automatically; but don’t send a bare message that only reads, "Yes". Who can remember everything they’ve sent?

Answer a detailed email message one point at a time. Quote the main points back to them, but always heeding the timeless advice of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style: "Omit needless words."

These are just a few guidelines toward establishing, clear, concise and professional email communications within the workplace and among your peers.

Above all remember that politeness is always necessary in all forms of communication. As long as you always adhere to that rule, you won’t fall too far away from proper etiquette.