Outlook: Composing Email Messages

Some basic things to keep in mind when composing and sending an email to make communication as efficient as possible are:

• Hit Reply all, if you want everyone included in your reply

• Consider appropriate presentation

• Gif or Picture use in signatures can cause problems for some people receiving them

• Logos and graphics should not be used in university emails because some email systems register them as attachments

• When sending large files use a link -- try using OneDrive.

• Keep fonts simple and easy to read for everyone (limit color use) --sans serif fonts like Ariel are ideal

• Empathize with your recipients

For downloads and more information visit unh.edu/cpa UNH Visual Guidelines

To avoid your messages being marked as spam:

• Anti-spam detection methods look at several factors and create a "spam score" for each message. When a spam score is high enough, the message will be marked as spam.

• Sometimes a message will have a high spam score even when the message is not spam.

Here are some simple ways to avoid common mistakes which can raise the spam score for your message:

1. Avoid strange use of capitalization, symbols, and punctuation.

   • Don’t use ALL CAPS or aLtErNaTe capitalization for effect.

   • Don’t use symbols like @ or ! as substitutes for letters in a word.

   • Emails with multiple exclamation points or question marks can look suspicious.

2. Make sure your emails are at least one full sentence.

   • Don’t send an email that only includes an embedded image or link

   • Spam messages are often very short, sentence fragments, or only a few words.

3. Your subject line should be related to the body of your email message.

   • Spammers often try to lure you in with a misleading subject line.

   • Limit the use of all caps, special characters

   • Avoid making your subjects appear urgent

4. Limit the use of common spam phrases.

   • Words like "free" and "diet" and "pharmaceuticals" are often used in spam messages.

5. Avoid deceptive and malicious links in your message as well as an excessive amount of links -- try using OneDrive. 

   1. Limit Social Media links to external senders

6. Too many attachments can make your message appear suspect.

7. Avoid using a reply-to address that goes to a different domain than your sender address.

8. Avoid sending emails in mass - anything over 250 could trigger an account lock

Contact your campus Help Desk with concerns.