Lesson 2.1: Email Basics: What Are Electronic Mails, or Emails?

Lesson 2.
1: Email Basics
What are Electronic Mails, or Emails?
Electronic mail is a method of trading messages between people using

electronic devices’ mail. E-mail, short for electronic mail, is information stored
on a computer exchanged between two end-users over telecommunications.
In simple terms, e-mail is a message that may carry text, files, images, or other
attachments sent through a network to a designated individual or group of
individuals. It allows you to post, receive messages to and from anyone with
an e-mail address anywhere in the world.
Two Ways to Send & Receive Email
The earliest use of the internet is for sending and receiving electronic mail, or
email. There are two ways to send and receive an email–via email program or
web-based email. An email program, also called email client software, enables
you to send emails by running email software on your computer, which interacts
with an email server at your internet access provider to send and receive an
email. With web-based email or webmail, you send and receive messages by
communicating via a browser with a website. The big four email carriers
currently are Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail (discontinued), Gmail
(Google), and AOL Mail.
The advantage of web-based email is that you can easily send and receive
messages while traveling anywhere in the world. Moreover, because of the mail
servers storing all your outgoing and incoming messages and folders, you can
use personal computers and browsers to keep up with your email.
Many users will rely mostly on an email program on their personal computer,
but they will switch over to web-based email to check messages when traveling
without their PCs.
How to Use Email
You will need an email address, of course, a sort of electronic mailbox used to
send and receive messages. All such addresses follow the same approach:
username@domain.
For example, [email protected].
The username: juandelacruz. The username, or user ID, identifies who is at

the address. There are many ways that the username might be designated,
with and without capital letters, numbers, or special characters.
Domain name: vsu. The domain name, located after the @ (“at”) symbol, tells
the location and type of address. Periods (called “dots”) separates domain-
name components. The domain portion of the address provides specific
information about the area–where the message should be delivered.
Top-level domain: edu. The top-level domain, or domain code, is a three-letter
extension that describes the domain type: .net, .com, .gov, .edu, .org, .mil, .int–
network, commercial, government, educational, nonprofit, military, or
international organization.
Country: ph. Some domain names also include a two-letter extension for the
country.
Creating an Email Account
Most email carriers provide free email services, and the account creation can
be relatively straightforward. Different email carriers may require similar
information, such as your name and a username. For the sake of this lesson,
try to create a new email account using Google's Gmail service.
1. Open the Gmail account registration website.

Enter https://www.google.com/gmail/about/ in the web browser. It will
open a page with information regarding Gmail.
2. Click Create an Account.
This button will take you to the first page in the account creation section.
3. Input your first and last name.
Enter your first name into the text box with a field "First name" and last
name into the text box labeled "Last name."
4. Come up with a username for your Gmail account.
The text box labeled "username," type in the username you want to use
for your email address. For this lesson, your username must be of the
format: firstname_lastname—for example, juan_delacruz.
5. Enter a password for your Gmail account.
Type your chosen password into the "Password" text box and "Confirm
password." You can only proceed if these passwords match.
6. Click on the Next button.
Afterward, the page will require you to provide appropriate information
to proceed with the account creation.
Essential Parts of an Email
Figure 1. An example of an email composition.
To: The email address of the primary recipient
Cc: Previously means carbon copy, but now it means courtesy copy. When
referring to email “cc,” this means every recipient email address you enter into
the “to” and “cc” field will be able to see who the recipients of the email message
are.
Bcc: Blind carbon copy. The email address you add to the “bcc” field will
receive a copy of the email message, but this will be unknown to the other
recipients.
Subject: The subject is a very brief topic sentence describing the content of
the email body and displays in most email systems that list email messages
individually.
Body: The email body, which contains text that is the actual content. It may
include signatures–automatically generated information that is inserted by the
sender’s email system.

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Lesson 2.

What are Electronic Mails, or Emails?

Electronic mail is a method of trading messages between people using

Two Ways to Send & Receive Email

How to Use Email

For example, [email protected].

The username: juandelacruz. The username, or user ID, identifies who is at

Creating an Email Account

1. Open the Gmail account registration website.

Figure 1. An example of an email composition.

To: The email address of the primary recipient

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