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Email Licensing Exam
by Greg Coyle

This will be a timed sixty (60) minute examination of your skills as an emailer (or efemailer). During the entirety of this exam there should be no use of artificial stimulants, x-ray vision, clairvoyance, bionic anything or pens. Use a no. 2 pencil for all questions. See the test proctor for confirmation of your pencil’s no. 2 status if you’re not sure. See the proctor as well for blackouts, mild arrhythmia, palpitations, "the sweats," dry tongue or uncontrollable shaking. Note: There will be no official bathroom breaks during the exam. Those wearing adult diapers are free to go as needed.

Section 1: Multiple Choice

(Circle the most correctest answer. Choose only ONE answer to each question.)

1. The subject line of your email should:
a. Be written in iambic pentameter
b. Pertain clearly to the email body
c. Always start with "There once was a man from Nantucket."
d. Reflect your love of pornography

2. For time-critical messages, you should precede the subject with:
a. Subpoena attached.
b. Fire!
c. Urgent:
d. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!

3. For requests, you should precede the subject with:
a. I’ll count to 10 and you better:
b. If I can interrupt your perusing of Internet naughty bits:
c. I love you long time, Joe:
d. Req:

4. If you are referring to a previous email, you should:
a. Tell the author you’re onto him/her, that hidden video cameras don’t lie
b. Ask if the author remembers you from the copy room at the Christmas party
c. Request a snort of that apple jack he/she keeps in the bottle of Listerine in his/her desk
d. Explicitly quote the appropriate portion(s) of that earlier email to provide context

5. When responding to an email, it’s good to look very carefully at what in the first three sentences of your reply to avoid confusion?
a. The quality of the jokes
b. Use of the word "kegger"
c. Use of pronouns (i.e., he, she, they, it, etc.)
d. References to your tingly parts

6. It’s best to avoid the following in the body of the email:
a. Italics, bold and color changes
b. Speaking in tongues
c. Citing Satan, our master and lord
d. Jokes about how your boss’s pathetic comb-over or his "interesting" eau de toilette

7. You should attempt to keep your line length to how many characters?
a. Depends on how interesting the message is
b. 180.67
c. Eenie, meanie, miney, mo … 5
d. 70

8. You should attempt to keep your paragraph length to how many lines?
a. Size doesn’t matter…
b. 25
c. 52 (for dyslexics)
d. The "Magic 8 Ball" says, "Not Likely"

9. To give something mild emphasis, enclose it between:
a. The words "sex" or "free"
b. Asterisks
c. !!!!---------à xxx ß------------!!!!
d. I see Paris, I see France, I see __________’s underpants.

10. True or False: It’s appropriate to type your message in all caps.
TRUE
False
SomeTImEs

11. True or false: Sarcasm is particularly dangerous to use in an email.
True
False
Yeah, real dangerous

Section II: Grab Bag

(Circle ALL correct answers.)

For the most effective emailing, one should:
a. Be mostly clothed.
b. Include "http://" before all URLs. If it appears at the end of the sentence, leave off the period or separate it from URL by a space.
c. Confirm your recipient can open an attachment file before sending it.
d. Lather, rinse, repeat.
e. Use "emoticons" or "smileys" to represent emotion. (Use the following as a guide to their use http://www.eff.org/papers/eegtti/eeg_286.html).
f. Use spelling and grammar features to ensure messages are free of such errors.
g. First turn away from this week’s very special episode of "Felicity."
h. Check that the signature is accurate and appropriate to the audience.
i. Have three or four Jell-O shooters first to take the edge off.
j. When forwarding messages, put your comments at the top of the message.
k. Don’t overuse acronyms like BTW (by the way), IMHO (in my humble opinion) OSH%T! (Oh sh%t!), YCIOFITPL (your car is on fire in the parking lot).
l. Don’t attach large files (over 50K) without getting permission from your recipient.
m. Always use salutations/greetings for clarity.
n. Never pretend to be someone you’re not (e.g. an underwear model, William Shatner, Siegfried OR Roy).

Section III: Email Software

(Choose the MOST appropriate word to complete each sentence.)

1. Don’t email ___________ of over 1 Mb. Either put the files on a server, or .ftp the file.
a. prosthetic limbs b. attachments c. mackerel d. letter bombs

2. Use mass emails __________.
a. sparingly b. to share hygiene tips c. for pics of naked people d. at the top of the hour

3. Use __________ if you want to secretly send the email to certain people.
a. "Hear ye, hear ye" b. Wicca spells c. magic beans d. the Bcc: line

4. If using an alias in your email address, consider ____________.
a. i.p.freely@aol.com b. free.crack@excite.com c. for.a.good.time.email.tootie@yahoo.com
d. something easy to remember

5. If using a password, consider using _____________.
a. your credit card number b. letters, numbers and symbols c. "password" d. "Hi!"

STOP
Put pencils down. ("You’re a stupid, ugly pencil…!")

Answers:

Section I:
1. (b) A clear subject line helps the recipient prioritize messages while still in his/her in-box.
2. (c) Making clear those messages requiring immediate response enables the recipient to immediately determine message status.
3. (d) Making clear those messages with a request enables the recipient to more effectively order his responses.
4. (d) This better enables the recipient to understand your message.
5. (c) Use of unverified pronouns can cause confusion.
6. (a) Italic, bold and color changes are not accepted by all email programs and can cause unwanted problems in your message on the recipient end.
7. (d) With some email programs, if a line is longer than 75 characters, it will split at the 76th character and the line will end with an equals (=) sign. There are even a few email readers that truncate everything past the 80th character.
8. (b) This equals one "page" of text, plenty for an email message.
9. (b) Depending on the recipient’s email program, "curly" quotation marks can be misread and replaced by other characters in transmission.
10. (False) Use all caps only for strong emphasis.
11. (True) Without the benefit of gestures or expressions, sarcasm can be misunderstood and create confusion.

Section II:
(b) A period can sometimes be misread as part of the URL, rendering it inoperable.
(c) It makes little sense to send an attachment your recipient cannot open.
(e) If it’s important to illustrate a particular emotion not immediately apparent in the text, these "cues" are an effective means for doing so, if slightly nerdy.
(f) Given that most programs have spelling and grammar checks, there is no excuse for such errors to appear in your message.
(h) Just as the message itself should be appropriate to your audience, so too should your
signature information following the message.
(j) This enables the reader to immediately discern your information from his/hers.
(k) Too many acronyms clutter the message and confuse the reader.
(l) Some programs cannot open files of this size. Others will be literally crippled when attempting to do so.
(m) This is important as a measure of politeness and for clarity.

Section III:
1. (b) They’re simply too big and require too much memory.
2. (a) Too many mass emails dulls their impact and annoys busy, busy people.
3. (d) Sometimes you don’t want everyone on your recipient list to know who’s on your recipient list.
4. (d) This is good way to help protect your privacy while online.
5. (b) Using letters, numbers and symbols makes your passwords harder to crack.