Sending and receiving messages

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. A letter by post can take days to reach another city. How does an email reach Canada in a few seconds? Today we will learn how to send, receive, reply to and forward messages by email.

First, what is email? Email is short for electronic mail. It is a message sent from one computer or phone to another over the internet. It can carry text, photos and other files. It reaches the other person in seconds, and costs almost nothing.

Every email user needs an email address, like riya dot shah at gmail dot com. The first part is the username, which identifies the person. The at sign separates the two parts. The last part is the domain name, which tells the mail provider. No two people can have the same email address.

You can use email in two ways. Webmail opens in a web browser, like Gmail or Outlook dot com. An email client is a program installed on the computer, like Thunderbird or Evolution. Either way, you sign in with your username and password.

To write an email, click Compose or Write. The To field holds the main receiver's address. Cc means carbon copy, and everyone can see who got a copy. Bcc means blind carbon copy, and those names stay hidden from others. The Subject is a short line that tells the topic. The body is the actual message you type.

An attachment is a file sent along with an email, like a photo or a project document. Click Attach, or the paper clip icon, and choose the file. Most services limit the size of attachments. For example, Gmail allows about twenty five megabytes, and bigger files are shared as a Drive link.

Here are the steps to send an email. First, click Compose. Type the receiver's address and a subject. Type the message and attach any file. Check, is the address correct? If yes, click Send. If not, fix the address first, because a wrong address sends the mail to the wrong person or bounces it back.

Emails are kept in folders. The Inbox holds messages you receive, and unread ones are shown in bold. Sent holds a copy of every mail you sent. Drafts holds mail you started but did not send. Spam, or junk, holds unwanted mail, often fake offers. Trash, or Bin, holds deleted mail for some days.

When you open a received message, you can answer it in three ways. Reply sends your answer only to the sender. Reply all sends it to the sender and to everyone in To and Cc. Forward sends the same message to a new person, with its attachments. Reply adds Re before the subject, and forward adds Fwd.

Pause and predict. Your teacher sends a mail to forty students, all in the Cc field. You click Reply all to say thanks. Who receives it? The teacher and all forty students, so use Reply for a personal answer.

Good email users are safe and polite. Never share your password or OTP, even if a mail looks official. Do not open links or attachments from unknown senders, because they may contain viruses. Always write a clear subject and a polite message. Writing in all capital letters looks like shouting, so avoid it.

Let us revise what we learned today. Email is electronic mail sent over the internet. An address has a username, the at sign, and a domain. A message has To, Cc, Bcc, Subject, body and attachments. The Inbox receives mail, and other folders are Sent, Drafts, Spam and Trash. Reply, Reply all and Forward are the three ways to answer. Send a polite test mail to a family member today.