Faculty of Health
Netiquette Guidelines
Why do you need netiquette?
We need to communicate with each other in meaningful ways, whether for research,
education, business or enjoyment through email. However the use of digital
communication raises a number of issues ranging from privacy, security and freedom
of speech, to honesty and confidentiality so it is more important than ever to
understand and observe general guidelines of network etiquette (netiquette).
Even with the best of intentions, misunderstandings are likely to occur in almost any
type of communication. In a face-to-face situation or telephone conversation you are
able to change your tone of voice, to rephrase comments and to present body language
that welcomes further communication and thus promotes understanding. Typed
messages do not offer you the benefit of these signals. Normal day-to-day email
messages and online posts can cause the most problems, with offhand remarks and
unguarded comments, thoughtless turns of phrase and careless wording. Care must be
taken both when sending an email message or online post, and, perhaps more
importantly, when reading them. Try not to be too harsh if there's a chance that you
might have misinterpreted the author’s meaning.
The following guidelines for netiquette will help staff members and students:
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To convey a professional image within and outside the university.
To communicate what is intended.
To avoid email viruses.
To avoid situations that potentially could lead to prosecution.
What are the netiquette rules?
Below is a list of most important netiquette rules that seem apply to nearly all
institutions.
General Netiquette
Use correct spelling, grammar & punctuation.
This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a
bad impression of the university, it is also important for conveying the message
properly. Text with no full stops or commas is difficult to read and can sometimes
even change the meaning of the text. If your program has a spell checking option,
why not use it? It is better to type your message in something like Word and then
copy it in to a website then to hope that you have spelt everything correctly.
Use proper structure & layout.
Since reading from a screen is more difficult than reading from paper, the structure
and layout is very important for e-mail messages and long posts. Use short paragraphs
and blank lines between each paragraph.
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale
Faculty of Health
Do not write in CAPITALS.
IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can
be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted ‘Flame’ mail.
Do not attach unnecessary files.
By sending or posting large attachments you can slow down e-mail servers and the
loading time of web pages. Wherever possible try to compress attachments (e.g.
convert to PDF) and only send or post attachments when they are useful. Where
possible put documents on shared servers for people to access.
Do not ask to recall a message.
If you send an email or post a message by mistake it is likely that your message has
already been delivered and read by the time you notice. It is better just to send an
email to say that you have made a mistake and apologise. This will look much more
honest than trying to recall a message.
Do not copy a message or attachment without permission.
Do not copy a message or attachment belonging to another user without permission of
the originator. If you do not ask permission first, you might be infringing on copyright
laws.
Do not send or forward emails or post comments containing libellous,
defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks.
Avoid offensive language of any kind. Using digital communication to harass others
in a sexual, racial or other manner violates civil rights laws. By sending or even just
forwarding one libellous or offensive remark in an email, you and the university can
face legal proceedings.
Take care with abbreviations and emotions.
For example, abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (which has several
meanings, laugh out loud, lots of laughs, lots of love etc). The recipient might not be
aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and these are generally not appropriate.
The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-) or the addition of emotion
pictures e.g. widely available smiley faces. Do not use text language. These are
things that you should adopt in your career, especially those where a
misunderstanding could cost someone their life. Most healthcare professions
discourage the use of abbreviations that form part of a patient's public record. If
another healthcare worker or the patient request access to their personal file, then it
contributes to general confusion by the reader.
Consider special needs of your recipients.
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale
Faculty of Health
It is possible that your recipients have certain disabilities, for instance they may be
partially sighted, blind or have dyslexia. Using well constructed messages and a good
writing style will assist these users in reading your emails.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, cheating and collusion are considered unacceptable by the University and
dealt with severely. Any use of electronic communication systems to plagiarise or
collude will be included as evidence in disciplinary proceedings.
For further information, please consult the University Policy on Plagiarism.
The Phenomenon of Flaming
One feature of electronic messages that distinguishes them from other forms of
communication is their ability to evoke immediate and strong emotion in the
recipient. Misinterpretation of the content or form of the message plus the likelihood
that the recipient will then fire off a hasty response often exacerbates the situation.
This expression of extreme emotion or opinion in a message is referred to as
‘flaming’.
It is frighteningly easy to create an immediate and not necessarily thoughtful response
to a message. Interpersonal cues that aid the face-to-face communication process,
such as immediate feedback and the ability to judge body language are completely
absent from this communication medium. Without face-to-face communication,
attempts at humour, irony, sarcasm, and wit are often misinterpreted. Some may view
your joke as criticism. Unlike telephone and personal conversations that fade with
time, impulsive responses can sit around in mailboxes, on discussion boards, be
printed out, become circulated and acquire a level of importance that was never
intended. This is a real barrier to effective 2-way communication and can have a
negative impact on work relationships and work productivity.
It has been noted that flaming can also cause us to forget general etiquette and results
in language being used that is offensive, abusive or derogatory to race, gender, age,
religion or sexual orientation. It should be noted that at the university (and most
likely in your profession) that this will not be tolerated and treated in a serious
manner.
The best approach to avoiding this issue would be that if you are tired or stressed, to
consider saving your message in the draft folder and sending it the next day or when
you have had time to think over what you are going to say and what the true meaning
of the original message was.
Sending the Right Message
Use clear and meaningful subject lines that your reader will understand.
Emails without subject headings are often viruses or spam. Message board posts
without a subject might be skipped over by readers.
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale
Faculty of Health
Use a professional writing style.
Consider the tone, content and context of your message; be polite, courteous and
respectful. Remember electronic messages are a permanent record and leave a lasting
impression. Avoid aggressive, inflammatory, rude and condescending language.
When not to send, or post, messages.
Do not conduct arguments in public by copying in mail lists.
Where debate is possible restrict your addresses to those directly involved in solving
the debate. Ensure external parties to debates are not forwarded original threads
inappropriately.
Communicate complaints or dissatisfaction directly to the individual. Refrain from
sending complaints about individuals to third parties via email. Give an individual the
courtesy of a phone or face-to-face conversation. This opportunity to clear up a
misunderstanding is very important in promoting 2-way communication.
Communicate highly complex information through other means. A telephone call or
face-to-face conversation may reduce any misunderstandings.
Negotiations usually need back and forth communication. If you find yourself
responding more than three times via email on the same topic, choose an alternate
form of communication, such as a discussion board.
Email-specific Netiquette
Do not request delivery and read receipts.
This will almost always annoy your recipient before he or she has even read your
message. Besides, it usually does not work anyway since the recipient could have
blocked that function, or his/her software might not support it, so what is the use of
using it? If you want to know whether an email was received it is better to ask the
recipient to let you know if it was received.
Do not forward virus hoaxes and chain letters. Do not reply to spam.
By replying to spam or by unsubscribing, you are confirming that your email address
is 'live'. Confirming this will only generate even more spam. Therefore, just hit the
delete button or use email software to remove spam automatically.
Use a complete signature?
In most cases it is good practise to include your name, address and contact details in
all emails. But if you are sending an email to a mailing list or large number of people
consider if you do want all those people to know you full contact details. In these
situations it might be best to include just your email address and the phone number of
your departments’ reception.
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale
Faculty of Health
Using the ‘To’ and ‘Bcc’ field in email.
When using the ‘To’ field to send an email mail externally to a large list, you are
publicising someone else's email address without their permission. One way to get
round this is to place all addresses in the ‘Bcc’ (Blind carbon copy) field. The
recipient will only see the address from the ‘To’ field in their email, so if this was
empty, the ‘To’ field will be blank. A problem with this is it might look like
spamming.
Create and maintain appropriate mailing lists.
When communicating with a predefined group of people create a list and use it
appropriately, do not abuse other lists (e.g. ptstaff) and circulate irrelevant emails
Use ‘cc’ field sparingly.
Try not to use the ‘cc’ (Carbon Copy) field unless the recipient in the ‘cc’ field knows
why they are receiving a copy of the message. Using the ‘cc’ field can be confusing
since the recipients might not know who is supposed to act on the message. Also,
when responding to a cc: message, should you include the other recipient in the ‘cc’
field as well? This will depend on the situation. In general, do not include the person
in the cc: field unless you have a particular reason for wanting this person to see your
response. Again, make sure that this person will know why they are receiving a copy.
REPLYING/ FORWARDING
Do not leave out important/relevant message threads.
When you reply to an email, you should include the part of original mail in your
reply; this is usually achieved by using 'Reply', instead of 'New Mail'. This ensures the
full facts are always available. If you only wish to reply to part of a message copy and
paste it into your reply
Do not overuse ‘Reply to All’.
Only use ‘Reply to All’ if you really need your message to be seen by each person
who received the original message.
Forwarding emails with long threads
Consider the appropriateness of forwarding not only your message but all messages
contained in the email. Ensure the all content is appropriate for all recipients. It is
often easy to ignore the first message of a long email but a recipient is very likely to
read this. Also, when adding your own text to the thread you should add this at the
top of the document. This is not always the default setting in your email editing
software, but should be changeable via the options menu.
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale
Faculty of Health
Discussion Board Specific Netiquette
No Marketing.
The use of discussion boards for advertising or soliciting is not allowed and does not
relate to the objectives of your group. Any breach will be removed by the discussion
board administrator.
Read it aloud.
It is always a good idea to read your post out aloud before you post it. Is the tone
correct? Could it be misunderstood? Checking these two things could help prevent
any misunderstanding from other readers.
Are you being funny?
It is always a good idea to try and keep humour out of discussion boards but if you
feel it is relevant and required, make sure that those that will be reading it know that
your post is made in jest. Something that sounds funny to you might not when being
read from the screen.
Post under the right heading.
Try and place your post in the most relevant discussion board. For example keep your
social posts to virtual cafés. Work related messages posted here might not be seen by
your tutors and other members of your group.
Don't post meaningless messages
Posting messages that say nothing more than "Me too" is a quick way to irritate other
members. If you agree with a posting, either enjoy your consent by yourself or reply
with an informative comment about why you agree. Imagine how dull a board would
get if it contained nothing but hundreds of "me too's".
Refrain from cross posting
Cross posting means posting a single message to several different message boards,
and it is almost never appropriate. Such posts tend to reduce the quality of the
discussion and needlessly increase the traffic on the board. Find the best place for
your post, and please confine your message to one board.
Do not post false information
Never post blatantly false and / or misleading information. This not only affects other
users of the discussion board but might result in your removal from the discussion
group (if the group is being graded this could lead to you failing this task).
Above all else use your commonsense. Listen to that little voice in
your head that says just take a second to check what you have done
before you click ‘SEND’
Updated: 2012-06-25
Author: Tim Smale