Ethical Publishing: Emoticons and Email Etiquette

Most employees do not know how to write and interpret what they receive as it is overlooked by many companies which could damage internal and external corporate relationships. Byron (2008, p.309) agreed that misusing emails would harm the workplace relationships due to fewer proper "greetings" among employees. Proper email etiquette should be trained among companies as it helps to promote respect and integrity among employees in the workplace.

Emoticons' involvement in emails

A way of expressing emotions in digital forms, emoticons.
(Source: Forestwalter)

Emoticons are normally used in emails to make the message more exciting. However, a credible email does not require emoticons in its message. (Dumbrava & Koronka 2006, p.62) Emoticons are meant to express the sender's emotions to the receiver in the message. Unfortunately, emails cannot be used to express a sender's feelings towards a receiver. Dumbrava & Koronka (2006, p.61) argued that email cannot convey emotions, face-to-face and telephone conversation as it lacks vocal inflection, gesture and a shared environment. Emails are meant to deliver a message or information from one to another and putting emotions is unnecessary unless it is not corporate-related. McKay (2010) supported that emoticons are fine when emailing in a less formal relationship but stick to words in a workplace.

Email's Good and Bad Etiquette

A new way of posting letter, email (Source: Knol 2009)

For emailing, there must be a balance between informal and formal structure. Being too informal would have the tendency of putting emoticons, fancy names and words in emails. A totally formal emailing would reprimand the senders that normally email informally. Dumbrava & Koronka (2006, p.61) mentioned that when writing an email message, the correspondent must be identified based on the specific relationships with him/her and adjusting the language and tone to them. In corporate level, emails should be formal when addressing to other companies and informal within the company with permission.

The authors added on by saying that a credible email should not be too informal and use suitable tones as inappropriate ones can cause a reader to ignore, delete or overreact to the message. McKay (2010) stated that changing the tone when writing is more difficult compared to speaking. Because of this, there are many bad emails sent as the speed of emailing discourages the senders to review their message. Wilkie (2010) argued that emailing encourages senders to type fast messages without thinking through and careless or inappropriate language usage. This would lead to the increase numbers of vague emails produced by senders.


Conclusion

With the influence of emoticons and formal/informal emailing towards delivering messages habits, senders must be cautious in knowing to use them at the right time.




Reference List:

Byron K. 2008, 'Carrying Too Heavy a Load? The Communication and Miscommunication of Emotion by Email', Academy of Management Review, vol.33, no.2, pp.309-327, viewed 28th May 2010,
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=112&sid=54c07656-bfc7-40af-8b66-8587c04cdbd0%40sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=2008-03712-003

Dumbrava G. & Koronka A. 2006, 'Writing for Business Purposes: Elements of Email Etiquette', Annals of the University of Petrosani(Economics), vol.6, pp.61-64, viewed 28th May 2010,
http://www.upet.ro/annals/pdf/Annals-2006.pdf#page=61

McKay D.R 2010, ' Email Etiquette', About.com: Career Planning, viewed 30th May 2010,

http://careerplanning.about.com/od/communication/a/email_etiquette_2.htm

Wilkie H. 2010, 'Business Email Etiquette- Why it Matters,' Ezine Articles, viewed 30th May 2010,
http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Email-Etiquette---Why-it-Matters&id=4048087