What's in an email?

Finally - I can start on module 2. I've read through everything but work keeps getting in the way of study. Okay, email.....mmmm. I've been a bit slack. I seem to spend a lot of time doing lots of other stuff, but I've never taken the time to learn how to organise my email set-up. I know it would be far more efficient, and I know you have to take time to make time, but first you have to have time available. Right, now that I've confused myself....

EMAIL GLEANING

What info can you glean from an email. Well, the obvious bits are the ones easily seen. Who it came from, who it was sent to and what it's about are all in the head bit, plus just reading the actual content can tell you a bit if the 'reply' bits haven't been deleted. But to find out a bit more you have to seek out the information. I picked out a work email and clicked on file/properties. The info in there is more revealing.

Bit hard to read, but there is detailed info here on the return path, the delivery date and time, and who it is going to. It also includes info on the time it took to get from the sender to me, the path it took and the time it arrived at each hop (at least I think that's what it means!), the MIME version, virus threats, and all kinds of stuff about the content (fonts, content type, character sets etc.). Some emails have more info than others. I'm not sure exactly how to read all of the info in 'properties' but I think I follow most of it.

TO CC OR NOT TO CC

I use cc when I send an email to one person, but want someone else to have a copy of that email. The recipient of the email knows to whom I've sent a copy. The cc'd recipient knows the email is more or less for filing rather than for response. BCC would be appropriate if someone would like a copy of the email but they don't want the original recipient to know their email address. Reply all - handy if you want to reply to all of the original email recipients. I use it so that I don't have to type in the email addresses (less error). If the message I'm replying to is reasonably short, or if the recipients are waiting for a reply, I might include the actual content, but often I delete it. Sometimes messages can get very lengthy, even though it's good to have that record of 'conversation'.