If you check your email inbox at least once a day, you probably know the basics about writing an email: Use the right grammar, be courteous, don’t make demands, say “please” and “thank you” when needed, don’t send mass invites to your neighbourhood politician’s rallies, and so on.

But here’s a list of the more subtle offences people sometimes don’t realise they’re committing. Never fear, it’s not too late to change your habits and make Outlook a better place for everyone (of course, if you’re a big-shot in your company, please disregard this and all other etiquette lists and continue writing office memos in Klingon; no-one’s going to call you out on it).

Changing genders : Yes, it is expected that you will start an email with “Dear Mr X/Ms Y,” but what if you’ve received an email from a person whose name is gender-neutral? Instead of making assumptions, see if you can find them on an Internet search first.

Ambiguous subject lines: You cannot use “hi”, “hey”, “enquiry” and other single words in the subject line, whether the email is to your colleagues, friends or family.

These are the same words that come in the subject lines of spam, and any recipient even vaguely acquainted with spam will toss the email (unopened) into their trashcan.

Ridiculousfonts : If all your official communications go out in Comic Sans MS, then you, Sir, have a problem. Please enrol yourself in a Font Rehabilitation Centre immediately and start practicing the liberal use of Times New Roman or Arial before your colleagues stage an intervention.

Inappropriate shorthand : Don’t treat email like Twitter. Take an extra minute to erase “u r welcum” and type “You’re welcome.” It’s not going to kill you (and if this was likely, there would probably be a Hollywood blockbuster about it called Tym 2 Die). Bonus points for knowing when to use “your” and “you’re”.

Chicken-pox effect : Let’s be clear. An ellipsis (“…”) is not a replacement for a full stop. In fact, it is two full stops more than necessary. Use it only if you have to, mainly when you’re making implications (eg: “P. James the magician, cancelled on us, so maybe we should start looking for alternate office party entertainment options…”) or demonstrating a continuation of something. Similar rules apply when using question marks and exclamation points: One is more than enough.

Forgettable/confusing attachment names: Make sure that your attachment has a name that accurately reflects its contents, and can easily be searched for. If the document you’re working on is undergoing revisions, then save each revision as a new document and name it to reflect the date and any additional relevant information. Therefore, an appropriate file name is “Project Proposal draft 29/7/2013 with Meena comments”. An inappropriate file name would be “Project Proposal draft final FINAL”. A laughably terrible file name would be “New Microsoft Word Document (3)”.

Going “HULK SMAAAASHHH!” on your annoying colleague: Yes, you’re mad at him, and yes, he’s a lazy pig who steals credit for your work.

However, none of these are good enough reasons for you to turn into an angry green superhero and tear him to pieces via a scathing email and caps lock. If you’re writing while feeling emotional, have someone you trust proofread your mail before you send it to make sure you haven’t said anything unnecessarily confrontational or grossly inappropriate. Be judicious in cc-ing your superiors.

Pointless forwarding : You probably already know that you shouldn’t be forwarding religious, political or offensive stuff to your co-workers. You also shouldn’t be forwarding pointless links, images or videos. People know how to use the Internet. If they wanted “20 Pictures of Ocelots Sunbathing”, they are capable of finding it themselves. When forwarding emails, ensure that the unnecessary portion of the mail trail is deleted (and that you are allowed to forward that email in the first place).

Bad proofreading : Remember those good old days when your cell phone with the numeric keypad used to autocorrect ‘add’ to ‘bed’? Well, your current phone with the qwerty keypad is more proactive, and not in a good way. If you find yourself sending follow-up apologetic emails saying, “I meant ‘add’, not, ‘Africa’, then it’s time to start proofreading. Also, take extra care to make sure names and figures that you quote are accurate before hitting “send”.

Pretending you don’t know what “Reply All” does: It ruins people’s lives and causes global warming, that’s what it does. So ask yourself, do you need to RSVP “Yes” to just the invitee, or to the entire gang of 40 people cc-ed on the email who are going to be at the same meeting as you four hours from now?

(The author is a psychologist.)

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