The Value of Emoticons

Do you know that, 25 years ago, Professor Fahlman from University Carnegie Mellon, came out with his idea of smiley face and now it became popular? Emoticons are a smiley face which could be simply made by typing a colon, a hyphen and hen parenthesis with little icons designed to be used for online communication. (The Media Report, October 2007)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domness/3270483716/in/photostream/

Why emoticons are available inside an email?

Hariss, D 2009, stated that the internet “counter-culture” used the idea of emoticons to stimulate some of the cues you would use in a face-to-face conversation, and reduces the likelihood of being misinterpreted. For me personally, inserting emoticons into the email is interesting. It’s like describing your emotions towards the receiver. Hariss, D 2009 agreed that by using the common smiley faces appropriately can markedly improve the clarity of your message and it can allow you to express a wider range of sentiments and emotions in what you write. However, a suggestion from emailreplies.com, 2008, it better doesn’t use emoticons if you are not sure whether they know what it means.

How to use it?

According to the media report interview, Generation Y who grew up with texting, instant messaging, emailing, and social networking make them cares more about the proper etiquette than the older generations. By putting inside the context, we need to consider that e-mail has two functions according to the target audience which are casual and conversational email and professional email. Dumbrava, G 2006, suggested that the basic rules to be observed when writing or responding to potential employers, co-workers, colleagues or business members, the email sender should avoid using emoticons, misspellings and poor grammar, and capitalization. In the order word, to be considered as the generation Y, we need to more care on the proper etiquette especially in professional e-mail.

Source: http://college.monster.com/benefits/articles/301-entry-level-business-etiquette-101?page=3

I believed the value of emoticons is a positive cost. There is no harm to use emoticons in an e-mail because I think it’s a freedom way to express your self during the conversation with your receiver The only thing that we need to learn is how to use it in a proper way and for the right type of work.

References:

Dumbrava, G & Koronka , A 2006, Writing for Business Purposes: Elements of Email Etiquette', Annals of the University of Petrosani (Economics), vol.6, pg.61-64, retrieved online on 15 June 2010, from: http://www.upet.ro/annals/pdf/Annals-2006.pdf#page=61

Email etiquette, retrieved online on 15 June 2010, from: http://www.emailreplies.com/#top

Harris, D 2009, Electronic Mail Etiquette,

retrieved online on 15 June 2010, from: http://www.pmail.com/etqtte.htm

The Media Report 2007,Emoticons and email etiquette, retrieved online on 15 June 2010, from: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm