Online “Etiquette”

Practicing good online etiquette, or “netiquette,” will help you to effectively interact with your instructors and fellow students, as you will not be able to utilize body language clues to convey or read messages when communicating from a distance. It is easy to misread the intended tone of an e-mail.

Ground rules for online communication (excerpts from World Campus 101 materials at Penn State Outreach offered by Ann Taylor). Complete the True/False questions below to self-check if you are familiar with some basic concepts for online communication.

1. My online messages should be long and elaborated.

 

2. Use a meaningful subject line, so that my readers will have a clear idea of what the message contains.

 

3. You should include your "signature" at the bottom of your messages.

 

4. I should use all caps sparingly.

 

5. I can talk about whatever I feel like saying about others in online forums.

 

6. When I react to someone else's message, I should address the ideas, not the person.

 

7. I should show my sense of humor to others as much as possible.

 

8. I should use acronyms often when communicating with other online.

 

9. I should be careful NOT to get too personal too fast.

 

10. I should be respectful of other, diverse opinions.

 

11. I can forward messages from others without asking the original author first since they were already posted on line.

 

12. I should copy/paste a message into the body of a note instead of attaching a file to a message.

 

13. I should NOT share copyrighted materials online.