MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

CHAPTER 11: Electronic Mail Basics

Objectives:
a.) Determine effective email structures to achieve clarity and
successful communication.
b.) Develop a heightened awareness of the potential perils of
digital communication.

Lesson 1: Email Overview

Email
Email is a service which allows us to send the message in
electronic mode over the internet. It offers an efficient, inexpensive
and real time mean of distributing information among people.
E-Mail Address
Each user of email is assigned a unique name for his email
account. This name is known as E-mail address. Different users can
send and receive messages according to the e-mail address.
E-mail is generally of the form username@domainname. For example,
[email protected] is an e-mail address where webmaster is username and
tutorialspoint.com is domain name.
Important Reminders:
• The username and the domain name are separated by @ (at) symbol.

• E-mail addresses are not case sensitive.

• Spaces are not allowed in e-mail address.
E-mail Message Components
E-mail message comprises of different components: E-mail Header, Greeting, Text, and
Signature. These components are described in the following diagram:

Page 1
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

1. E-mail Header
The first five lines of an E-mail message is called E-mail header. The header part comprises of
following fields:
• From • Subject
• Date • CC
• To • BCC

2. From - The From field indicates the sender’s address i.e. who sent the e-mail.
3. Date - The Date field indicates the date when the e-mail was sent.
4. To - The To field indicates the recipient’s address i.e. to whom the e-mail is sent.
5. Subject - The Subject field indicates the purpose of e-mail. It should be precise and to the
point.
6. CC - CC stands for Carbon copy. It includes those recipient addresses whom we want to
keep informed but not exactly the intended recipient.
7. BCC - BCC stands for Black Carbon Copy. It is used when we do not want one or more of
the recipients to know that someone else was copied on the message.
8. Greeting - Greeting is the opening of the actual message. Eg. Hi Sir or Hi Guys etc.

Page 2
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

9. Text - It represents the actual content of the message.

10. Signature - This is the final part of an e-mail message. It includes Name of Sender,
Address, and Contact Number.
Advantages
E-mail has prooved to be powerful and reliable medium of commmunication. Here are the
benefits of E-mail:
• Reliable • Printable
• Convenience • Global
• Speed • Generality
• Inexpensive

1. Reliable - Many of the mail systems notify the sender if e-mail message was
undeliverable.
2. Convenience - There is no requirement of stationary and stamps. One does not have to
go to post office. But all these things are not required for sending or receiving an mail.
3. Speed - E-mail is very fast. However, the speed also depends upon the underlying
network.
4. Inexpensive - The cost of sending e-mail is very low.
5. Printable - It is easy to obtain a hardcopy of an e-mail. Also an electronic copy of an e-
mail can also be saved for records.
6. Global - E-mail can be sent and received by a person sitting across the globe.
7. Generality - It is also possible to send graphics, programs and sounds with an e-mail.
Disadvantages
Apart from several benefits of E-mail, there also exists some disadvantages as discussed
below:
• Forgery • Junk
• Overload • No response
• Misdirection

1. Forgery - E-mail doesn’t prevent from forgery, that is, someone impersonating the
sender, since sender is usually not authenticated in any way.
2. Overload - Convenience of E-mail may result in a flood of mail.
3. Misdirection - It is possible that you may send e-mail to an unintended recipient.
4. Junk - Junk emails are undesirable and inappropriate emails. Junk emails are sometimes
referred to as spam.
5. No Response - It may be frustrating when the recipient does not read the e-mail and
respond on a regular basis.

Page 3
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

Lesson 2: E-mail Working

E-mail System
E-mail system comprises of the following three components:
• Mailer
• Mail Server
• Mailbox

1. Mailer - It is also called mail program, mail application or mail client. It allows us to
manage, read and compose e-mail.
2. Mail Server - The function of mail server is to receive, store and deliver the email. It is
must for mail servers to be Running all the time because if it crashes or is down, email can
be lost.
3. Mailboxes - Mailbox is generally a folder that contains emails and information about
them.
Working of E-mail
Email working follows the client server approach. In this client is the mailer i.e. the mail
application or mail program and server is a device that manages emails.
Following example will take you through the basic steps involved in sending and receiving
emails and will give you a better understanding of working of email system:
• Suppose person A wants to send an email message to person B.
• Person A composes the messages using a mailer program i.e. mail client and then select
Send option.
• The message is routed to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to person B’s mail server.
• The mail server stores the email message on disk in an area designated for person B.
The disk space area on mail server is called mail spool.
• Now, suppose person B is running a POP client and knows how to communicate with B’s
mail server.
• It will periodically poll the POP server to check if any new email has arrived for B. As in
this case, person B has sent an email for person B, so email is forwarded over the network
to B’s PC. This is message is now stored on person B’s PC.

Page 4
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

The following diagram gives pictorial representation of the steps discussed above:

Lesson 3: Email Operations

Here we will discuss the operations that can be performed on an e-mail. But first of all we
will learn how to create an email account.
Creating Email Account
There are various email service provider available such as Gmail, hotmail, ymail, rediff
mail etc. Here we will learn how to create an account using Gmail.
• Open google.com/gmail and
click create an account.
• Now a form will appear. Fill
your details here and
click Next Step.

• This step allows you to add

your picture. If you don’t want
to upload now, you can do it
later. Click Next Step.
• Now a welcome window
appears. Click Continue to
Gmail.

Page 5
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

• Wow!! You are done with creating your email account with Gmail. It’s that easy. Isn’t it?
• Now you will see your Gmail account as shown in the following image:

Key Points:
• Gmail manages the mail into three categories namely Primary, Social and Promotions.
• Compose option is given at the right to compose an email message.
• Inbox, Starred, Sent mail, Drafts options are available on the left pane which allows you
to keep track of your emails.
Composing and Sending Email
Before sending an email, we need to compose a message. When we are composing an email
message, we specify the following things:
• Sender’s address in To field • Subject of email message
• Cc (if required) • Text
• Bcc (if required) • Signature

You should specify the correct email address; otherwise it will send an error back to the
sender.

Page 6
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

Once you have specified all the above parameters, It’s time to send the email. The mailer
program provides a Send button to send email, when you click Send, it is sent to the mail server
and a message mail sent successfully is shown at the above.
Reading Email
Every email program offers you an interface to access email messages. Like in Gmail,
emails are stored under different tabs such as primary, social, and promotion. When you click
one of tab, it displays a list of emails under that tab.
In order to read an email, you just have to click on that email. Once you click a particular
email, it gets opened.
The opened email may have some file attached with it. The attachments are shown at the
bottom of the opened email with an option called download attachment.
Replying Email
After reading an email, you may have to reply that email. To reply an email,
click Reply option shown at the bottom of the opened email.
Once you click on Reply, it will automatically copy the sender’s address in to the To field.
Below the To field, there is a text box where you can type the message.
Once you are done with entering message, click Send button. It’s that easy. Your email is
sent.
Forwarding Email
It is also possible to send a copy of the message that you have received along with your
own comments if you want. This can be done using forward button available in mail client
software.
The difference between replying and forwarding an email is that when you reply a
message to a person who has send the mail but while forwarding you can send it to anyone.
When you receive a forwarded message, the message is marked with a > character in
front of each line and Subject: field is prefixed with Fw.
Deleting Email
If you don’t want to keep email into your inbox, you can delete it by simply selecting the
message from the message list and clicking delete or pressing the appropriate command.
Some mail clients offers the deleted mails to be stored in a folder called deleted items or
trash from where you can recover a deleted email.

Page 7
 MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

For more knowledge about email basics, please check the link provided;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnxsl8h5gj4&t=10s

REFERENCES

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/internet_technologies/e_mail_overview.htm

Page 8