Subject: Fwd: FW: FWD: Fw: You musT forward this NOW!!!!
 

I never forward these things but this is so spacial it make your head explode., Twice
 

.
 

This makes me cry so much MUCH that I JUST have to send it to you
 

try not to cry about these facts
 

 

1) When baby kittens faint an angel sings a song on a cloud to give it happy dreams
 

 

2) Last week a town in North Germany made kittens illegal
 

to adopt and an entire city in Guana heard angels crying.
 

This is true. The NEW YORK MAGAZINE had an story on it. Check your
 

facts its true.
 

 

3) Angels and kittens are found holding hands together in ancient literature all the time.
 

…
 

10) If you love kittens and angels, you must forward this email to twenty-five email buddies in the next ten minutes or fifty angels and kittens will crYU>> and hate you.

Recommendation

If you really must alert your friends that kittens and angels hold the key to each others' happiness, please:

• Remove excess blank lines from the email, allowing only a single carriage return at the ends of paragraphs. Do not use carriage returns at the ends of lines within the same paragraph. If you must create an intentional blank line, additional carriage returns are acceptable.
• Pull broken words or punctuation together. In the case above, the period sitting by itself a line or two after "Twice" needs to be brought up to just after "Twice."
• Condense the subject line from "Fwd: FW: FWD: Fw: You musT forward this NOW!!!!" to something more meaningful, such as "Kittens and Angels"
• Use the opportunity to correct a few mistakes, such as changing "cry so much MUCH" to "cry so much" and "I never forward these things but this is so spacial it make your head explode., Twice" to "I always forward these things because my head has exploded twice"

Benefits

Condensing does not take very long, as it's mostly a matter of deleting blank lines. It will dramatically increase the ease with which (and the likelihood that) your email will be read, and is simply good form.

Once you've adjusted the above email to something more like the following, you'll be ready to hit Send.

Subject: Kittens and Angels

I always forward these things because my head has exploded twice. This makes me cry so much that I just had to send it to you. Try not to cry about these facts.

1. When baby kittens faint an angel sings a song on a cloud to give it happy dreams.

2. Last week a town in North Germany made kittens illegal to adopt and an entire city in Guana heard angels crying. This is true. The NEW YORK MAGAZINE had an story on it. Check the facts -- it's true.

3. Angels and kittens are found holding hands together in ancient literature all the time.

...

10. If you love kittens and angels, you must forward this email to twenty-five email buddies in the next ten minutes or fifty angels and kittens will cry and hate you.

Bonus Tip

Learn to separate admittedly interesting angel and kitten folklore from weak attempts at blackmail. So in this case you can safely remove item "10" from the list above. The resulting email will have the same deeply-emotional impact on your reader and it will be less likely to be immediately deleted.

Suppose you get a forwarded email that looks like the following, and further suppose that you want to follow its instructions and pass it on to everyone you know:

>>>>
>>>>This is
>>>amazing!!!!!!
>>>>>>Look up your first name in this
>>>>>list and add
>>>>>>one to the numbor after the
>>>>>name
>>>>>>or add your name followed by
>>>>>a 1
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Andy 4
>>>>>>>Bobby 2
>>>>>>>Cindy 2
…and so on…
>
>

Stop! Do not forward it until you clean it up. That means removing all those “>” characters beginning each line, then taking out the extra line breaks.

So let’s pretend you got the email in the example above. What do you do? Do you hit “Forward” as fast as you can, update the number by your name, then dump your contact list in the To: line and hit “Send?” Nope. Don’t do it.

Resist the urge.

Get rid of the “>” symbols. If your email program will let you, search-and-replace all the “>” with “” (nothing). If you can’t do that from within your email program, you can copy the text of the email to a text editor and search-replace there. (Select all the text in your email, use Edit/Copy or hit Control-C to copy the text to the clipboard, then in the text editor use Edit/Paste or Control-V to paste the text.) For example, most Windows programs will search and replace text if you hit Control-H. A little dialog will open with “Find what:” and “Replace with:” fields. Put “>” in the first field and nothing in the second field, then hit replace-all (or replace them one at a time if the email contains >’s that you don’t wish to replace). Now your text looks like this:

This is
amazing!!!!!!
Look up your first name in this
list and add
one to the numbor after the
name
or add your name followed by
a 1

Andy 4
Bobby 2
Cindy 2
…and so on…

Looking better, huh? You’re not done yet. Now you want to fix up those lines at the beginning. Put them back together, using your best judgement, and increment the number by your name (or, since “Cedric” isn’t in the list, add it). You might even fix that spelling error, changing “numbor” to “number.” Now you’ve got:

This is amazing!!!!!!

Look up your first name in this list and add one to the numbor after the name or add your name followed by a 1:

Andy 4
Bobby 2
Cedric 1
Cindy 2
…and so on…

You’re ready to copy the text back to your email program, add your recipients, and hit Send.

Sometimes we receive email that looks like this:

YOU HAVE TO READ THIS ITS VARY IMPORTANT!!! THE FACTS IN THIS EMAIL ARE WITHOUT QUESTION THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION YOU WILL RECEIVE TODAY ABOUT THE KING OF THE GOLD MONKEY COAST AND HIS INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, SO DON’T HESITATE TO READ IT SEVERAL TIMES TO GET ALL THE INFORMATION INTO YOUR HEAD BEFORE YOU FORWARD IT TO TEN FRIENDS FOR GOOD GOLD MONKEY LUCK…

There are several reasons not to do this. For one, it is thought that text you write in all caps looks like you’re yelling at the reader. Also, and somewhat related, is that it’s rude to not take the time or care to type in mixed case.

Most important, though, is that it is hard to read. Wherever possible, the brain often reads words and phrases by shape, and more distinctive word “shapes” are formed by mixing upper and lower case words. Mixed case also assists the brain in identifying proper names, sentence structure, and so forth.

So, bottom line is that in most situations you should use mixed case in emails.

References:
Sarah Greer, Elizabeth Sowden, and Lauren F. V. Scharff; Stephen F. Austin State University (July 20, 2005). Email Format and Instructions: Influences on Reading Times, Retention, and Preferences, American Journal of Psychology Research. http://www.mcneese.edu/colleges/ed/deptpsy/ajpr/vol1/ajpr11.pdf