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Electronic Mail (Email)

Electronic Mail Advantages and Disadvantages

Electronic mail has several advantages over both "snail mail" and the telephone:

  • Speed: "Snail Mail" can take days. Email often arrives within minutes (or less).
  • Cost: No long-distance charges.
  • Convenience: Easier than regular mail. Like a telephone voice mail system, but you can leave a more detailed message.

    • Electronic mail also has disadvantages:

  • Lack of non-verbal cues (paralinguistics): Telephone messages allow for "tone of voice" and other paralinguistic cues to aid understanding. Thus, email often uses Smilies to help the reader better understand your meaning.
    • Getting Email Addresses
  • Ask someone
  • Net Directories
  • NetFind
    Do a Net find search
    • Anatomy of an Email Address

    Standard mail addresses always start with the widest geographic designation at the bottom (State & City), followed by the street address above that and finally the name at the top. Here's how a standard mail address might look:

    Steve Anderson
    200 Walnut St.
    Hometown, UT 55555

    An email address is very similar. The most general information is put at the end, as in this example:

    sanderso@cc.usu.edu

    In this case, the "edu" means that the person is at an educational institution. "USU" is the name of the university. "CC" stands for computer center. Finally, the name is all the way to the left.

    The individual part to an email address have names. From left to right the parts are as follows:

    What is a domain?

    The information to the extreme right on an email address is referred to as the "top-level domain."

    Top level domains can be a three letter designation as to the type of location:
    COM = Commercial enterprise
    EDU = Educational institution
    GOV = U.S. Governmental
    INT = International
    MIL = U.S. Military
    NET = Network
    ORG = Non-profit organization

    Top level domains can also be a two-letter country code:
    Examples:
    TW = Taiwan
    SE = Sweden
    EC = Ecuador

    * Domains are not case-sensitive

    UP to the "Multimedia on the Internet" Class Home Page

    For more information about this Web Site contact sanderso@cc.usu.edu
    (Dr. Steve Anderson at Utah State University).