ENGH 302: Exercise One

Email Protocol & Sample Analytic Writing

OBJECTIVE: This exercise asks you to format a Word document and post this to Blackboard as
well as send that document to me as an attachment to an email. This will help you gain practice
using the upload feature in Blackboard as well as practice using our course email protocols.

IMPORTANT:
*This assignment needs to be submitted in TWO ways to receive credit:
ONE: Upload your response to the assignment on Blackboard.
TWO: Then send me an email, following email protocols covered in this lesson’s reading, with
your assignment attached.

WHY?
—We are making sure you can successfully submit your assignments to Blackboard.
—We are checking Blackboard’s new submission receipt feature. This feature sends you an
email stating that your assignment was successfully submitted; you should get this receipt from
Blackboard every time you upload an assignment.
—We are ensuring that you have read and understand the readings, know the course expectations
of professional email communication, have a working Mason email account, and know my email
address.

*You will be evaluated on your ability to comply with standard professional email proto-
cols, your tone, and on the accuracy of your response to the writing prompt.

Please be aware that you must master these email protocols in order to communicate with me.
After this week, I will not respond to emails that do not comply with protocols established in
class. In other words, you must use the proper format for subject lines, salutations, file naming
protocols, and closings in order for me to respond to your message.

Step #1: Create a Word document and save the file to your desktop as a Word (.doc or .docx)
document. Set it to double-space. Place your name, section number, date, and in the upper left-
hand corner. Do not add an extra double-space between paragraphs, between your identifying in-
formation and title, or between the title and your response to the prompt. Save your document
using the following file naming protocol: “LastNameEX1” (notice that there are no spaces in this
file name). Make sure you remember to periodically save your document.

Step #2: In approximately 300 words, respond to the following prompt:

Describe three of the rules Ms. Mentor recommends in "Don't Email Me This Way" for writing
appropriate email in an academic setting. Next, describe the two rules for writing effective email
that Dave Barry identifies in "You've Got Trouble," his review of the book, Send. Briefly ana-
lyze how Ms. Mentor and Dave Barry use tone and personal voice to critique poor email habits.
If you don't know what "analyze," "tone," and "personal voice" mean, look up those terms in the
dictionary.
Step #3: In approximately 50-100 words, explain a time that you had an email mishap, as in you
emailed the wrong person, or replied all, used the wrong tone, made a factual error or assumption
in an email, etc. (or if you’d like, describe a situation someone else had or imagine a worst case
senerio for a email mishap).

Step #4: When you have written, edited, and proofread your paper, upload your submission on
Blackboard to the Exercise #1 assignment category as well as send it to me as an attachment to
an email message from your MASONLIVE email account. You must use your MASONLIVE
email account to send this message. If you send the message from any other account, I cannot ac-
cept it.

REMEMBER: *This assignment needs to be submitted in TWO ways to receive credit:

ONE: Upload your response to the assignment on Blackboard.
TWO: Then send me an email, following email protocols covered in this lesson’s reading, with
your assignment attached.