3. Electronic mail.

Electronic mail (e-mail) has become an extremely popular medium of

communication in academic spheres. E-mail English is considered to be a
hybrid of writing and speech, or of a phone call and a letter. Academic e-mail
messages have thus been found to be relatively informal and to have certain
conversational features (Gains, 1999). Some important well-known
characteristics of e-mail English messages are as follows: • frequent
decapitalization (e.g., "let us meet on tuesday"); • use of abbreviations (e.g.,
BTW—by the way); • use of capitals for emphasis (e.g., "the exam is
TOMORROW!"); • carefree punctuation (e.g., the vanishing hyphens ine-mail I
email); • frequent omission of salutations and closings. The most important
rules of e-mail etiquette include: 1) prompt response to a received message (at
least acknowledgment of receipt) and 2) filling in the subject line that
economizes the time and mental efforts of receivers and makes messages more
concise. Most common abbreviations, or rather acronyms (i.e., words formed
from the initial letters of a name), which occur in e-mails (including academic),
are as follows:
AISI—as I see it;
ASAP—as soon as possible;
BOT—back on topic;
BTW—by the way;
FYI—for your information.
Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation (of reference) play an important role in academic
communication. They usually accompany various kinds of applications (e.g.,
job, fellowship, or grant applications) and are written by the teachers or
colleagues of an applicant. One of the primary purposes of the recommendation
letter is to share one's evaluation of the professional abilities and personal
qualities of the applicant. The evaluation is usually based on the interpretation
of accomplishments of a recommended person. The letter of recommendation
has a format of a letter with the introduction, body, and conclusion (Precht,
1998): • the introduction states the purpose of writing and serves as a frame for
the letter; • the body contains the main evaluation of the applicant; • the
conclusion contains predictions of the applicant s success. The letter of
recommendation should also include name, position, and address of a referee (a
person who provides a letter of reference). It is also recommended to describe
the context in which the writer has known the applicant. Often, the applicants
personal qualities (such as intelligence or industriousness) are described at the
end of the body of the letter. Letters of recommendation must avoid
generalizations and unjustified statements; they should include, therefore, a
sufficient amount of supporting evidence and details. Letters of
recommendation are rarely negative.