How to send your first email
How to send an email
Although email really began with the boom in Internet use in the early 1990s, the first email was sent in 1971 by Ray Thompson over the ARPANET computer system. Email along with SMS text messages are now the primary method of sending written communications around the world. About 294 billion emails are sent every day, that means more than 2.8 million emails are sent every second and about 90 trillion emails a year. This article explains how to send your first email.
The speed of e-mail and the ability to add images, documents and other elements such as clickable links to websites make it a much more flexible method of communication than letters or faxes.
To send and receive emails you will need an email account. There are a large number of free email providers, such as Google’s Gmail, Yahoo email and MSN’s Hotmail. These email accounts work over the Internet and are called webmail accounts. The advantage of webmail is that you can log into your account from any computer with Internet access and send and receive your email. These email accounts are protected by a username and password that you must type each time you want to access your email.
Most internet service providers will provide you with an email address when you sign up and this will usually be a webmail account, but with the advantage that they can also be used through an email client. An email client is software that allows you to manage your emails offline. There is again a wide variety of email clients, including Outlook Express and Outlook from Microsoft, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pegasus Mail and Apple Inc. Mail. One of the benefits of using an email client is that you don’t have to enter your username and password when you want to access your email.
Once you have an email account you will be given an email address. This is the address other people will use to send you emails.
An email address, such as [email protected], has two parts. The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address, most often the recipient’s username (your name), and the part after the @ sign is a domain name to which the message will be sent from e-mail. You must pass the full email address to anyone from whom you wish to receive email.
When you want to send an email there are three main parts that you need to think about. The three elements are the recipient’s email address, the subject line of the email, and the message itself. You can also add attachments such as photos or documents.
You must add the email address of the person you want to contact in the To field of the email. The email address must contain both parts of the address as mentioned above. Most email clients will also include CC and BCC fields. These are carbon copy and carbon blind copy and are terms that have survived from the days of typing pools and carbon paper! CC means that this person will be copied into the email message and the recipient will know that someone else has been copied into the message. BCC is for copying people in the message without the recipient being aware of it.
Once you have addressed the email message, the next field to complete is the subject. Subject lines are important because they show the recipient what the nature of the email is and why they should open it. Subject lines should describe the content of the email simply. Blank subject lines are often flagged as spam by email filters and will bounce back to you and not reach the person you sent it to.
Once you have completed the subject, you must write the content in the message itself! An email message can contain text, images and hyperlinks. You can also attach files such as Word documents, spreadsheets or photos. There is no upper or lower limit to the amount of text you can add. Once you’ve completed the text and added your name at the bottom, just click send and your message will be on its way through cyberspace.
Email is a really simple and effective way to communicate and once you get the hang of it. Sending emails will open up a whole new world.
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