Overview
When should you email, and when should you call, fax, or just show up?
- What is the crucial–and most often overlooked–line in an email?
- What is the best strategy when you send (in anger or error) a potentially career-ending electronic bombshell?
Synopsis
When should you email, and when should you call, fax, or just show up?
- What is the crucial and most often overlooked line in an email?
- What is the best strategy when you send (in anger or error) a potentially career-ending electronic bombshell?
The New York Times - Dave Barry
E-mail, for all its efficiency, often fails to achieve its intended result; a vague or carelessly worded message can cause major problems personal, legal and financial for senders and receivers. Helping you avoid these problems is the goal of Send, an informative, entertaining, thorough and thoughtful book. The authors are media veterans David Shipley is deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times; Will Schwalbe is editor in chief of Hyperion Books with extensive, and not always positive, experience sending and receiving e-mail. They summarize their essential message in two rules: Think before you send and Send e-mail you would like to receive.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewSome folks are so disgusted with email, they're abandoning it. We have a better solution: Read Send. This book offers the world's best advice on writing emails that'll be read, understood the way you meant them, and acted on the way you want.
The authors help you ruthlessly eliminate ambiguity that leads to misunderstandings (and gives people an excuse to ignore you). You'll learn better ways to ask for stuff (and thank folks afterwards). You'll discover how to write better subject and signature lines; how to use cc: and bcc: appropriately; how to avoid email's emotional traps; and what shouldn't get emailed at all.
Along the way, you'll be entertained with some of history's worst emails (from luminaries like FEMA's Michael Brown), plus neat tidbits like this: in Dutch, the word for the "@" symbol is apestaartje, "little monkey's tail.") Bill Camarda, from the July 2007 Read Only
Dave Barry
E-mail, for all its efficiency, often fails to achieve its intended result; a vague or carelessly worded message can cause major problems — personal, legal and financial — for senders and receivers. Helping you avoid these problems is the goal of “Send,” an informative, entertaining, thorough and thoughtful book. The authors are media veterans — David Shipley is deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times; Will Schwalbe is editor in chief of Hyperion Books — with extensive, and not always positive, experience sending and receiving e-mail. They summarize their essential message in two rules: “Think before you send” and “Send e-mail you would like to receive.”— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
From this essential guidebook's opening sentence—"Bad things can happen on email"—Shipley and Schwalbe make all too clear what can go wrong. E-mail's ubiquity, with casual and formal correspondence jumbled in the same inbox, makes misunderstandings common; e-mail's inexpressive, text-only format doesn't help. Given its brief history, there's no established etiquette for usage, which is why this primer is so valuable. It promises the reader hope of becoming more efficient and less annoying, reducing danger of a career-ending blunder. Brisk, practical and witty, the book aims to improve the reader's skills as sender and recipient: devising effective subject lines and exploring "the politics of the cc"; how to steer clear of legal issues; and how to recognize different types of attachments. Using real-life examples from flame wars and awkward exchanges (including their own), Shipley and Schwalbe (op-ed editor of the New York Timesand Hyperion Books' editor-in-chief) explain why people so often say "incredibly stupid things" in their outgoing messages. "Email has a tendency to encourage the lesser angels of our nature," they note. They also offer "seven big reasons to love email," along with quick guides to instant messaging and e-mail technology, all the while urging us to "think before [we] send." (Apr.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationSchool Library Journal
Adult/High School-In a snappy and easy manner, the authors provide a brief history of email, explain why people love it, review reasons for using it, and describe times when it should be avoided-for love letters, documents to be archived, and confidential correspondence. There are discussions on writing emails (essentially six types), subject lines, the use of contractions, font type and size, color, openings, and sign-offs. For readers who have ever sent an email and instantly regretted it, wondered about legality issues or whether or not that deleted email will stay deleted, or what information is hidden in an email's header, this guide provides the answers.-Joanne Ligamari, Rio Linda School District, Sacramento, CA
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information