Email Bibliography

Kaitlin Duck Sherwood

Here are just a few resources that you can use to learn more about email. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and will always be under construction as new material appears.

Common Questions

Here is more information on some common questions:

Finding Email Addresses by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Finding someone's email address by David Alex Lamb (longer, more comprehensive than mine)
Attachments by Gregory Wasson for MacUser
Is Electronic Mail More Like Speech or More Like Writing? by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Can I Use Outlook or Outlook Express with AOL? by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood

Varied Collections

Heinz Tschabitscher runs About.com's email site, and does so very well. His site has quite a lot of very good, well-organized information on it.
Yahoo's Electronic Mail Category covers everything and the kitchen sink. Google's Email Help and Tutorials site is a bit more focused.
There is an extensive guide to different programs for reading email at Inter-Links. This site also has information on how to find email addresses.
All About Email has a somewhat small, but growing collection of email articles and links.
Jacobe Palme has a small review of email books.
The Internet Business Forum has a very professional set of Email Tips and Techniques.
Wingra has a nice list of links. It covers mostly techie-type things - protocols, standards - but there is a pretty comprehensive list of industry magazines as well.
Adam Cogan of Superior Software for Windows wrote up some Rules to Better Email. I have some subtle disagreements with a few of the details of his rules, but on the whole they are very good.
There are a bunch of catch-all books that have a chapter or two on style/etiquette issues, but which tend to talk a lot about what email is, why it is wonderful, what features it has, and how to push the right buttons and pull down the right menus, using one or more of the emailers of the time to illustrate the concepts. These include:
- E-Mail for Dummies by John R. Levine (and a bunch of others) covers a whole collection of email software and services.
  IDG, 1997; ISBN: 0764501313; 300 pages
- Using Email Effectively by Linda Lamb using the Unix mailx email reader in the examples.
  O'Reilly and Associates, 1995; ASIN: 1565921038
- Using E-Mail, by Dave Gibbons and four others, covering a whole bunch of email programs.
  Que, 1994; ISBN: 0-7897-0023-9
- The E-Mail Companion: Communicating Effectively via the Internet and Other Global Networks by John Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell, using the Unix pine email reader.
  Addison-Wesley, 1994; ISBN: 0201406586
- There are also some interesting articles and books about the differences between oral and literate societies and the difference between post-printing press and "scribal" societies. I've got those in a separate bibliography.

Style and/or Netiquette

I lump style and netiquette together here because many authors don't distinguish between the two.

I Will Follow... covers a lot of the same material that my guide covers, but not in as much detail.
Paul McFedries has an email primer that is quite nice.
Albion.com has the Netiquette Home Page, which has excerpts from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea. The book is very thorough on how to be a nicer person, and tends to have a Usenet-oriented focus.
Albion Books, 1994; ISBN: 0963702513
Tips on E-mail Netiquette
Harvard Business School Publishing The Ten Commandments of E-Mail
Electronic Mail Etiquette (David Harris)
Avoiding the Dark Side of Email by Jim Britell is a thoughtful essay on the dangers of miscommunication in email and how to properly convey your message.
Roadmap by Rev. Bob Crispen talks about how to avoid flame wars.
E-Mail Etiquette, With Some Rules to Extinguish Flame-Throwing by Larry Magid has good, solid advice and a list of links to even more advice.
I disagree vehemently with some of the advice at Business Netiquette International. If you don't like my guidelines, you might like his.
The book Elements of E-mail Style by David Angell and Brent Heslop is an excellent book with a slightly different purpose from my guide. They talk about style a little bit, but most of the pages cover what I think of as "language mechanics" - spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, and so on.
Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 1994; ISBN: 0201627094; 157 pages
E-Writing: 21st Century Tools for Effective Communication by Dianna Booher is similar to Elements of E-mail Style, but bigger and thicker. 314 of its 370 pages are devoted to writing -- on paper or in email.
Pocket Books, 2001; ISBN: 0743412583; 368 pages
There is a classic, tongue-in-cheek guide of what not to do at Dear Emily Postnews.
Writing Effective E-Mail by Nancy Flynn and Tom Flynn is really kind of a workbook. It looks like it is good for use with a live training class. I don't agree with some of their statements about how important grammar is nor that email is no different than letters. They do cover all the basics briefly but pretty well.
Crisp Publications, 1998; ISBN: 1-56052-515-0; 82 pages
If you read A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email, you'll be bored by E-Mail Essentials by Robert S. Want, as about half of it is A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email. (I put the Beginner's Guide into the public domain, so yes, he can do that.)
Better, Faster Email: Getting the Most Out of Email by Joan Tunstall is a grab-bag of all kinds of email topics, including when to use email vs. phone, security, and finding mailing lists, and maintaining your address book.
Allen & Unwin; April 1999; ISBN 1864488999; 192 pages
Easy Email, also by Joan Tunstall, is basically a very small, abridged version of Better, Faster Email.
Allen & Unwin; 2000; ISBN 1865082945; 192 pages
Collections of emoticons can be found at:
There are also two books on emoticons:
Smileys by Dougherty Sanderson and David W. Sanderson
O'Reilly & Associates, 1993; ISBN: 1565920414; 93 pages
and
The Smiley Dictionary by Seth Godin
Peachpit, 1993; ISBN: 1-56609-008-3; 73 pages
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age talks about issues that The Chicago Manual of Style doesn't cover yet: things like how to cite a web page, how to spell email, etc. Somebody had to write a spec for the language, and I guess they were as good an outfit as any to write it. Be aware that they talk about how to translate net concepts to paper, not how to translate paper concepts to electronic media. Furthermore, most of the book is a huge glossary.
HardWired, 1997; ISBN: 1888869011; 158 pages
Why Didn't You Say That in the First Place? : How to Be Understood at Work by Richard Heyman. I haven't read this one yet, but it looks like a good book on paper document style issues.
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997; ISBN: 0787903442 ; 192 pages

Geeky Technical Details

If you want information about the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of exactly how the bits in your email message end up on someone else's screen, Carnegie-Mellon's Project Cyrus has a very good overview of email standards.
The specifications for almost all of the Internet are called RFCs. I made a search page that uses Google to search all of the site that has RFCs and RFC drafts.
Want to know the difference between IMAP and POP? Look at Terry Gray's Message Access Paradigms and Protocols.
Delivering Electronic Mail by Phillip Robinson is mostly geared to system administrators and other technojocks. (Out of print)
M&T Books, 1992; ISBN: 1558511709
Effective E-Mail : Clearly Explained : File Transfer, Security, and Interoperability by Brad Shimmin (with CD-ROM) is kind of "geek lite". It is somewhat technical, with a particular emphasis on how to cope with different file formats and attachments. There is also a nice section on security and how to send email to/through proprietary (non-Internet) systems. It uses Eudora for its examples.
Ap Professional, 1997; ISBN: 0126400601 ; 250 pages
My wish list for The Perfect Email Program by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood

Mailing Lists

Liszt is probably the biggest list of lists; go here if you are looking for a list.
Where can I find a mailing list? by Heinz Tschabitscher for About.com
Email Discussion Groups and Lists from Impulse Research gives common features (and commands) of emailing list software and gives pointers to where you can find a list on your favorite topic.
James Milles of Case Western Reserve University has a nice summary of Mailing List Manager Commands (for users, not administrators).

Sociology

Miss Manner' Basic Training: Communication by Judith Martin covers much more than email, but it has a very good chapter on when to use which medium.
Crown, 1997, ISBN 0-517-70673-3; 180 pages
The 3 Rs of E-Mail : Risks, Rights and Responsibilities by Diane B. Hartman and Karen Nantz. I have not read this book.
Crisp Publications, 1996; ISBN: 1560523786; 153 pages
Email compared to other new communications technology: New Communications Technologies by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood

Security

E-Mail Security : How to Keep Your Electronic Messages Private by Bruce Schneier is a very detailed, somewhat technical book. It talks about all the different ways people can spy on you via email, then goes into the nuts and bolts of encrypting mail.
John Wiley & Sons, 1995; ISBN: 047105318X; 384 pages

Spam

Spamcon.org has a lot of resources to combat spamming and to deal with spam.
Find out where spam comes from in Spam Sources by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Stopping Spam by Alan Schwartz and Simson Garfinkel is a book mostly for system administrator-types on how to cut down on unsolicited commercial email. There is some stuff for casual computer users as well.
O'Reilly & Associates, 1998; ISBN: 1-56592-388-X; 204 pages
Removing the Spam : Email Processing and Filtering by Geoff Mulligan is a guide for system administrators or Unix power users. It tells how to use sendmail and procmail to get rid of spam. (I have not read this book yet.)
Addison-Wesley Longman, 1999; ISBN: 0201379570; 190 pages

I have heard of but not read:

E-Mail by Stephen A. Caswell.
Artech House, 1988; ISBN: 0890063036
Internet Messaging by David Strom, Marshall T. Rose.
Harcourt Brace, 1998; ISBN: 0139786104 ; 400 pages

Policy

I am occasionally asked for guidelines in creating usage policies. I don't make policies, but here is what I've run across:

Jonathan Whelan's book e-mail @ work claims to be "for everybody", but I would say that it's optimized for people who haven't used email much and who are trying to decide if/how to bring email into their company. It has very good sections on setting policy and legal issues. It also covers email security and touches (very) briefly on managing email and writing better messages. Note: this is very definitely a British book. Some of the slang, companies, and acronyms won't make immediate sense to US readers; the legal aspects are discussed purely from a British legal perspective.
Baker & McKenzie has a long, thorough, and lawyerly An Employer's Staff Email and Internet Policy.
Legal Research Group has some information, including a sample policy for $100.
Should Your Company have an Internet Use Policy? (InterActive Arts)
Kalton's (a British legal firm) has a good essay on Email and Internet Policies.
E-mail Answers has some discussion of email security and legal liabilities.
Examples of and resources for developing U.S. educational Acceptable Use Policies
E-Policy : How to Develop Computer, E-Policy, and Internet Guidelines to Protect Your Company and Its Assets by Michael R. Overly. (I have not read this book.)
AMACOM, 1998; ISBN: 0814479960 ; 144 pages
Intel has a site with information about their email training program.

Scholarly Work

Occasionally people ask me for more scholarly/academic work. I don't follow the literature closely, so you may have better luck looking for "Computer-Mediated Communication" or "Human Computer Interaction" in your favorite search engine.

Here is what I know about:

I have an extensive, annotated bibliography of email papers with full scholarly citation information.
Jacek Gwizdka has an extensive bibliography of email research. Go here first!
Dr. Carsten Sørensen has a bibliography of Information Overload resources.
I bought two copies of the book Connections : New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization by Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler because I found it so fascinating. They talk about how electronic communications alter the way people work.
MIT Press, 1992; ISBN: 0262691582; 212 pages Reprint edition
Eric Williams has written a scholarly paper on Predicting E-Mail Effects in Organizations.
Long and Short Routes to Success in Electronically-Mediated Negotiations: Group Affiliations and Good Vibrations by Don Moore, Terri Kurtzberg, Leigh Thompson, and Michael Morris is a very interesting research paper that finds that email negotiations between strangers are more profitable for both sides if the parties have some personal communication before starting negotiations.
Research Paper #1484, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
John December hosts an index of Computer Mediated Communication.
Ronald Rice of Rutgers has a long list of scholarly papers that he's been involved with; many of them have to do with computer-mediated communication.
Email Overload: Exploring Personal Information Management of Email by Steve Whittaker and Candace Sidner is an excellent study of how people really use email. (Note: "overload" here is used in the techy sense of "overloaded operators", not in the sense of "overwhelmed".)
Olle Bälter did extensive observations of real-world email use for his thesis. He makes recommendations for how to improve email use. Bälter also did a sophisticated mathematical model of email use times based on keystroke-level analysis. Two interesting points from his research: having over thirty folders is a bad idea; so is periodically cleaning out old messages.
E-mail as Habitat by Nicolas Ducheneaut and Victoria Bellotti is a field study of how people at three different companies actually use email.
Interactions of the ACM, September/October 2001
Bälter and Sidner wrote a paper together on Bifrost, a tool for organizing email messages by category.
Heylighen and Dewaele's paper on formality seems to support my thoughts on context and formality. Their view of formality is slightly different from mine: their research suggests that language is more formal the less shared context the speaker and audience have. (Note: I'm still rolling their ideas around in my head; I may rewrite pieces of my email guide.)
Horvitz, Jacobs, and Hovel report on their Baysean network for prioritizing incoming messages.
David Kirsch's A Few Thoughts on Cognitive Overload talks about the various forms of information overload and various coping strategies.

Unknown

I don't know what these books are about yet.

Simple Steps to E-Mail Success by Joy Van Skiver. Wrexpress; 1998; ISBN: 0964382423

History of Email

While electronic mail within one computer system has been around longer, Ray Tomlinson gets the credit for sending the first electronic mail message from one computer to another.

Mail: the application that hadn't been thought of by Peter H. Salus
Ray Tomlinson and the Birth of E-mail
History of the Internet

I want to make a brief mention of the PLATO project, which I grew up using. By 1974, PLATO had e-mail, newsgroups, chat, and instant messaging, followed soon afterward by remote viewing of someone else's screen. I'm not exactly sure what the user base was, but I know that it could handle about 200 simultaneous users back then. I would guess that there were a few thousand regular users, maybe more.

Go back to A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email

Created 22 Oct 1998
Updated 17 November 2001
Removed email management software list, since I wasn't managing to keep it current. 26 June 2007

Please see the copyright notice.