Reading e-mail.

I think my only conclusion in my earlier post is that
context is
near-necessary in human intercourse.  How that context is
achieved
is largely a matter of circumstances including time,
conventions/culture,
and available tools.

Having said that, I think a reality of online communications
is
that quoting in e-mail and other online discussion is
something
that is here and not going away anytime soon, regardless of
whether 
it is the best way to provide the necessary context.

In an ideal world, I might be able to restate every point to
which
I am responding, but I must confess that I often do not have
the
time to do so and that the original words are often 'good
enough'.

Personally, I prefer to show implicit understanding of what
I am
referencing by using the information I have gleaned from
reading
the original message(s) to continue the discussion.  If I do
not
understand something, I say so, and if my understanding is
flawed,
it will come up and be corrected.  Instead of reiteration
(or 
interpretation), I synthesize new ideas from the source
material
or evaluate the source material.

I'll avoid the Latin phrase, but while repetition is the
mother
of study, I think it is how one does the repetition that is
the
key to learning.  One does not learn Latin (or Perl) just by

repeating words and phrases, one learns it by trying to use
it
to say things or do things.

In the world of hardcopy print, there are footnotes or
references
to provide verbatim quotes to backup otherwise paraphrased
or
interpreted source material.  That is not something that is
currently
present in the way people currently communicate in email.

The reason people in the old days did not cut up letters and
glue
them back into ongoing mail is that it was a pain in the
neck to
do so.  Nowadays, we can.  Should we?  I don't know.  But I
do know
that it is not something that is going away anytime soon, so
I am
interested in ways to make quoting as useful a means as
possible to
provide context on email and other similar online discussion
mediums.

--Jon

------------------------------------------------------------
------------
The following was automatically added to this message by the
list server:

For information about Micronet, including subscribing to
or unsubscribing from its mailing list and finding out
about upcoming meetings, please visit the Micronet Web site:
<http://micronet.be
rkeley.edu/>.

  Regarding the question of what format works best when
replying to email,
that is, whether your text in response should:

  - Go on top of previously quoted material
    or
  - Follow previously quoted material
    or
  - Be interspersed between snippets of previously quoted
material
    or
  - Exclude previously quoted material entirely

and whether, when quoting from previous messages, you
should:

  - Include the entire message thread
    or
  - Include only carefully hand-trimmed, relevant excerpt(s)
    from that thread

not to mention by what means quoted material should be
marked ...

... the answer is: "it depends on the context,"
including the purpose of
your communication, who you're writing to, under what
circumstances
they'll be reading the response, and how much time and
effort you can
devote to constructing it.  In other words, like much else
in life,
there's no single, easy formula that's appropriate for every
circumstance.

  Clearly Micronet'ters aren't the only ones grappling with
this, as is
evident from the following thread on the 37signals website:

  http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/fighting_the_top
_reply.php

  In that thread, there are passionate advocates for just
about every
style of replying to email that one could possibly think of.
 There are
also suggestions and requests related to the composing tools
in various
email clients to support various styles of replying.

Aron Roberts
Information Services and Technology




------------------------------------------------------------
------------
The following was automatically added to this message by the
list server:

For information about Micronet, including subscribing to
or unsubscribing from its mailing list and finding out
about upcoming meetings, please visit the Micronet Web site:
<http://micronet.be
rkeley.edu/>.