Proper E-Mailing

Let’s learn how to write an email!

Those who have been laughing after seeing the title, please stop now. I know you can write emails, you can send them, and you can copy others — that too I know. But most of you still cannot actually *do* email properly. Don’t believe it? Then tell me: what are TO, CC and BCC, and why are they used? See, you couldn’t answer! Those who know, sit quietly in the gallery, put on your headphones and listen to music. Those who don’t know, keep your eyes and ears open and listen to the lecture.

What is TO and why?

Very simple. The email address of the person you are sending the mail to goes here. If you want to send the same email to multiple people, separate the addresses with commas. In this case, everyone you are emailing is being addressed equally. Meaning, everyone is equally important for the email. Suppose you are the office manager. A picnic is going to be organized. You are the convener. You will inform your five assistant managers under you. You call a meeting where these five will be present, and the agenda and number of participants will be mentioned. You will inform everyone of the meeting schedule. Everyone on this list will know whom you are inviting to the meeting or who will be involved in other tasks. Everyone can reply or reply to all. They can also see the names, details, and emails of those included in TO, CC, and BCC, and they can reply or reply to all to them as well.

What is CC and why?

CC means Carbon Copy. You are not addressing the email to them directly, but they are being kept informed. You can add multiple people here as well, separated by commas. Everyone in this list can see the people in TO, CC, and BCC. In the meeting example above, you CC your director. Then he becomes aware of your initiative (important for your promotion, of course. Also a great technique to avoid responsibility — if something goes wrong later, you can say “you already knew about it”). He can interfere in the meeting if he wants. He can also reply or reply to all. Yes, he may reply to all with a “best wishes.”

What is BCC and why?

BCC means Blind Carbon Copy. You are not addressing the email to them directly, but you are informing them and they have certain responsibilities. You can add multiple people here as well, separated by commas. In the meeting example above, you BCC your accounts officer, office assistant, and cook. Then they start preparing. They arrange the expenses, food, and drinks. But they have no opportunity to interfere in the meeting because they cannot see who else is in TO, CC, or BCC. They can only reply to you, but they cannot reply to all.

Why is it important?

Suppose your friend sends an email to everyone using TO and CC saying he has been feeling sad since noon. He sends it to 100 people. One person replies to everyone saying “Oh no!” Another replies “It’s okay!” If all 100 people reply like this, you will receive a total of 100×100 = just 10,000 emails. Among these, somewhere your job interview date email arrived — but you didn’t even notice. And just like that, your job opportunity is gone. Since the email list was open to everyone, one day some friend’s contact leaked the list. Then one day you see a real estate agent emailing you: “Sir, we have a flat for you at 50% discount, only 8 million taka.” You don’t even have a job, yet such emails keep coming daily. You start thinking, “I may not have money, but people think I’m rich.” Then from a life insurance company, emails start coming: “How lucky your neighbor is — he died a few days ago, and his wife and children received 2 million taka.” Well, your luck is opening 20 times a day. Then from faraway Australia comes an email: “You have won 5 billion dollars (forty thousand crore taka) in a lottery.” You take out your calculator and start planning which region of the country you will buy. After that, thousands of emails start coming daily. After 3–4 days, your girlfriend stops talking to you. You can’t find any reason. There wasn’t even a fight. What happened? She sent you 2–3 urgent emails, but since you hit “delete all,” those got deleted too. By then, your email ID is proudly roaming in the lists of the world’s biggest spammers.

So when you need to send the same email to many people but you don’t know whether to put everyone in TO or CC, then skip TO and CC and put all the addresses in BCC.

In this era, an email ID is a personal identity. Misuse of your email can cause you serious harm. You may even face jail or fines. So learn how to use these properly, protect your own privacy, and respect the privacy of others.