Sending Electronic Mail (primer)

Electronic Mail | Sending Electronic Mail

Sending Electronic Mail

Sending email is relatively easy if your Web Browser supports email and has been properly configured. We will assume that to be true in what follows. Many different browser-based email systems are in use. We will give an example that will probably not be the same as yours, but it should be similar.
To send email, go to your browser menu and select "New Message" from the pulldown menu under "File" (see the adjacent figure). This will bring up a mail window of the form shown in the figure below.
As you can see, in this figure there are several windows into which you may enter information. To illustrate what goes into those windows, we are going to send a mail message to the President of the United States.

Now to send the email message, we do the following in the mail window that you have opened:

Enter the subject of your message into the "Subject" window. You don't have to put a subject, but it helps in keeping track of multiple messages to or from the same person. It is good practice to include one for all messages.

Enter the email addresse(s) of the persons that you are sending the message to in the "Mail To:" field. For this example we are going to send a message to the President, so enter

[email protected]
Be sure to put the address exactly like this. The regular postal service may still deliver mail if you make a spelling mistake in the address, but most computers will reject email if even one character is wrong in the address.

Enter the email address(es) of any other persons that you wish to receive copies of the message. In this case, let's send a copy to the Vice-President (in case the President doesn't have time to take care of your request!), and let's send a copy to ourselves so we will have a record of the message that we sent. So enter into the "CC:" field

[email protected], youraddress
where youraddress is whatever your personal email address is. ("CC:" stands for "Carbon Copy", from the old days when people used mechanical typewriters with carbon paper for copies and rode around in covered wagons!)
Notice that in this case we use commas to separate multiple addresses. Entries in the "CC:" field are optional (you don't have to send a copy to anyone), but you must enter an address in the "Mail To:" field, since it wouldn't make much sense to send a message without an address for the primary person the message is for! The distinction between the primary recipients and those receiving a CC: is for human sensibilities. In either case, the computer sends the email message to the address listed. The only difference is where the recipients address will be printed in the mail header when it is read.

Now type whatever you wish to say in the message into the main window frame. (Let's use some good taste here; this is going to the President, after all!) The lines will wrap automatically when you come to the edge of the field, and if you need more space, the window will scroll down automatically.

You may edit any of the fields in the mail window at any time before sending the message by using the mouse to position the cursor and inserting new text or erasing text with the "delete" key.

When you are happy with everything as typed into the Mail Window, click the "SendNow" button to send the message.
That's it! If your computer is set up properly to handle email, and you have not made a mistake in typing in the addresses, you have just sent an email message to the President and copied it to the Vice-President. You have also sent a copy to yourself, so you should be receiving an email message very shortly from yourself and, we hope, a reply from the President and Vice-President.
Since it looks like we are going to be receiving some mail, we now need to learn how to read incoming email messages.


			Electronic Mail \| Sending Electronic Mail
		Sending Electronic Mail Sending email is relatively easy if your Web Browser supports email and has been properly configured. We will assume that to be true in what follows. Many different browser-based email systems are in use. We will give an example that will probably not be the same as yours, but it should be similar. To send email, go to your browser menu and select "New Message" from the pulldown menu under "File" (see the adjacent figure). This will bring up a mail window of the form shown in the figure below. As you can see, in this figure there are several windows into which you may enter information. To illustrate what goes into those windows, we are going to send a mail message to the President of the United States. Now to send the email message, we do the following in the mail window that you have opened: Enter the subject of your message into the "Subject" window. You don't have to put a subject, but it helps in keeping track of multiple messages to or from the same person. It is good practice to include one for all messages. Enter the email addresse(s) of the persons that you are sending the message to in the "Mail To:" field. For this example we are going to send a message to the President, so enter [email protected] Be sure to put the address exactly like this. The regular postal service may still deliver mail if you make a spelling mistake in the address, but most computers will reject email if even one character is wrong in the address. Enter the email address(es) of any other persons that you wish to receive copies of the message. In this case, let's send a copy to the Vice-President (in case the President doesn't have time to take care of your request!), and let's send a copy to ourselves so we will have a record of the message that we sent. So enter into the "CC:" field [email protected], youraddress where youraddress is whatever your personal email address is. ("CC:" stands for "Carbon Copy", from the old days when people used mechanical typewriters with carbon paper for copies and rode around in covered wagons!) Notice that in this case we use commas to separate multiple addresses. Entries in the "CC:" field are optional (you don't have to send a copy to anyone), but you must enter an address in the "Mail To:" field, since it wouldn't make much sense to send a message without an address for the primary person the message is for! The distinction between the primary recipients and those receiving a CC: is for human sensibilities. In either case, the computer sends the email message to the address listed. The only difference is where the recipients address will be printed in the mail header when it is read. Now type whatever you wish to say in the message into the main window frame. (Let's use some good taste here; this is going to the President, after all!) The lines will wrap automatically when you come to the edge of the field, and if you need more space, the window will scroll down automatically. You may edit any of the fields in the mail window at any time before sending the message by using the mouse to position the cursor and inserting new text or erasing text with the "delete" key. When you are happy with everything as typed into the Mail Window, click the "SendNow" button to send the message. That's it! If your computer is set up properly to handle email, and you have not made a mistake in typing in the addresses, you have just sent an email message to the President and copied it to the Vice-President. You have also sent a copy to yourself, so you should be receiving an email message very shortly from yourself and, we hope, a reply from the President and Vice-President. Since it looks like we are going to be receiving some mail, we now need to learn how to read incoming email messages.