Page 141 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

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Chapter 23
E-Mail and Newsgroups

Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up.
—James Magary

E-mail

E-mail stands for electronic mail, messages that can be sent electronically to anyone on your network or on another
network, at any time or place. The network can be a local one, custom installed for a specific site, or it can be part of
the Internet. If you have access to a mail network at your site, ask the administrator to show you how to send and
receive mail. Using the Internet to send electronic messages can be even easier, providing your recipient is also on the
Internet. E-mail is probably the most popular and most widely used feature available to Internet users. E-mail, faxes,
and videoconferencing help people work collaboratively without being face-to-face.

E-mail Addresses

To send an e-mail message to someone, you need to know that person's address. An e-mail address usually consists of
the user's name followed by an @, followed by the host name (the name of the user's service provider), followed by
the name of the domain. The address is all spelled out, usually in lower case, with no spaces between segments. For

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example, the address for a Professor Magon Thompson at Arizona State University might be mthomp@asu.edu, where
"mthomp" is the user's name, "asu" is the host name, and ".edu" is the domain, in this case a domain referring to
educational institutions. Other frequently used domain suffixes are ".com,'' for commercial companies, ".gov," for
government addresses, and ".org" for nonprofit organizations. International addresses will include a country domain,
such as ".uk" for the United Kingdom.

You can also send e-mail to anyone who has an account on a commercial online provider, such as America OnLine
(AOL). The address will consist of the user's name followed by an @, followed by the host name of the online
provider. In the case of AOL, the e-mail address for Magon Thompson might be mthomp@aol.com.

You can keep a list of personal e-mail addresses in an address file that is part of the e-mail application. New
addresses can be added and old ones edited by using pull-down menu functions.

Receiving and Sending E-mail

E-mail on the Web can be accessed through an e-mail application such as Eudora or directly through the browser,
such as Netscape Navigator. If you are using Navigator, click the little envelope at the right bottom of the browser to
access the e-mail window. It will appear along with a window for your password. Once you key in your password, a
message is sent to your service provider's server, asking what mail you have. Mail will then be transferred to you, or
you will see a message that you have no mail. Any mail you receive will have the e-mail address of the person who
sent it. You can copy the address into your e-mail address book. Eudora and other e-mail programs work similarly.

To send a message, you can click the recipient's name in the address book, and a message form will appear with the
recipient name box filled in. Otherwise, select the new message function and fill in the recipient name. Other boxes
include a "cc:" box for copies to be sent to others, and a subject box to describe the contents of the message. Fill these
in and type your message in the main box. When you are done, click the Send button for immediate (or "delayed," if

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