Re: Reading e-mail.

  Regarding the question of what format works best when replying to email,
that is, whether your text in response should:

  - Go on top of previously quoted material
    or
  - Follow previously quoted material
    or
  - Be interspersed between snippets of previously quoted material
    or
  - Exclude previously quoted material entirely

and whether, when quoting from previous messages, you should:

  - Include the entire message thread
    or
  - Include only carefully hand-trimmed, relevant excerpt(s)
    from that thread

not to mention by what means quoted material should be marked ...

... the answer is: "it depends on the context," including the purpose of
your communication, who you're writing to, under what circumstances
they'll be reading the response, and how much time and effort you can
devote to constructing it. In other words, like much else in life,
there's no single, easy formula that's appropriate for every circumstance.

  Clearly Micronet'ters aren't the only ones grappling with this, as is
evident from the following thread on the 37signals website:

  http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/fighting_the_top_reply.php

  In that thread, there are passionate advocates for just about every
style of replying to email that one could possibly think of. There are
also suggestions and requests related to the composing tools in various
email clients to support various styles of replying.

Aron Roberts
Information Services and Technology

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Received on Sat Nov 18 2006 - 16:43:02 PST