Good Practices for Using Email for Delivery of Academic and Professional Documents

        When using email to submit professional work for a grade, publication, or any other circumstance with a deadline, please consider adopting the following practices to make sure your work is delivered properly.

Identify Your Purpose/Topic in the Subject Line:  Do not leave it blank.  Blank subject lines encourage carelessness in the sender (you!) and recipient (me!).  A functional subject line makes it easier for the recipient to locate your paper amid all the other emails you have sent the recipient, and helps the email stand out in a crowded inbox.  3 Courses x 12-15 Students per course = 36 to 45 papers in the inbox

Save Changes and Close the Document before Attaching: A common cause of mistakes is attaching a file you recently edited without saving the changes.  Until you do so, the old file, with all its errors and missing pieces, will be the file which is attached.  Closing the file will insure that the system will ask you to save changes if you have forgotten to do so.

Locate and Activate the "Read Receipt" Option: You can tell your email system to attach an automatic request to send you notification that your email has been opened by the recipient.  This tells you the email got where it was going.

Request Confirmation of the File's Safe Arrival: Include in the email's body a short note asking the recipient to verify that the file arrived intact.  Some spam-blocking software, including Goucher's, will strip away attached files that contain words or phrases, or attached images, that the system has been programmed to identify as a potential threat or nuisance.

After Pushing "Send," Open the "Sent Mail" Folder and Check:  Confirm that you actually attached a file to the message, and that the file name corresponds to the file you intended to send.  If you discover a mistake, just send a "disregard previous email" message and correct it.  Most recipients (me!) will be grateful for the correction.