Despite the fact that our professional and personal communication has been digital for years, we still often rely on familiar, traditional ways of interacting. Old habits die hard, but if you want to be polite and professional online, it’s important to make a few small adjustments. Netiquette shows us exactly how to do that.
What’s Netiquette?
Let’s start with the terms. Netiquette is simply etiquette for the digital world. The difference in spelling is just one letter, but in practice, there’s a lot more to it.
The term was invented in the early 1980s to describe a set of rules for email communication. The guidelines were pretty straightforward. Correspondents were expected not to spam, use caps, start conflicts, or make improper jokes. Over time, online communication has expanded greatly, and so have the rules. While the “old” rules are still in play, there are also a few more things to keep in mind if you want to be a polite and respectful communicator.
Don’t Expect an Immediate Answer
This is probably the most frequently broken rule. In face-to-face communication, we ask questions, get answers, share ideas, and respond in real time. When we shift to online communication, we often think it should work the same way. But it shouldn’t.
Online communication is asynchronous. It means no one is expected to reply right away to a message sent through a messenger, social media, or email. People may be working, traveling, sleeping, or simply not checking their devices. The pace is different, and respecting that difference is part of good netiquette.
At the same time, asynchronous communication doesn’t mean ignoring messages. Disrupting a conversation without warning and disappearing into thin air is also a violation of netiquette–it’s called ghosting. Ghosting isn’t always negative; it can be a way to protect yourself from bullying. But in ordinary situations, it’s considered inappropriate.
Just a reminder: if you’re talking to someone in person, try not to spend the whole conversation constantly checking your phone, even if you keep receiving messages. Netiquette doesn’t require you to respond immediately. Good etiquette does.
Mind Your Tone
This rule applies just as it does in traditional etiquette—be polite. However, being polite online requires paying attention to a few extra things. Since written messages don’t include facial expressions, tone of voice, or gestures, it’s easy for what you mean to get misunderstood. That’s why clarity is especially important.
A little sarcasm is totally fine in the right moment, but use it too much, and people can easily take your message the wrong way. Tone gets lost online, and jokes aren’t always interpreted the way you want. To avoid confusion, use an emoji or a quick clarifier when you’re being sarcastic.
And always think about who’s on the other end. The “slightly happy” emoji has traditionally been used with positive connotations, but today it can be considered as passive-aggressive, especially by Generation Z users. 🙂
Fix Your Grammar
Making your message polite and clear also means keeping it grammatically correct, leaving no room for confusion or misreading. It shows your professionalism and respect for the person you’re communicating with. So, if time allows, take a moment to check your message for errors before sending it.
Tips for proofreading your text
No one is immune to making mistakes, especially when dealing with long texts. It’s easy to lose focus and miss typos, repeated words, cliches, or other small mistakes that can hurt the impression.
To avoid imperfections, follow these tips:
1. Check your text with online proofreading tools and writing assistants such as Hemingway, Grammarly, Language Tool, Scribbr, and others. They can quickly spot and correct mistakes, help make your writing consistent, and even suggest improvements to the overall structure. However, don’t rely on them too heavily. These tools can struggle with idioms, sarcasm, and other language nuances, sometimes changing the meaning of a sentence.
2.After you’ve checked your text online, take a short break and come back with fresh eyes. If that’s not possible, try reading your text backwards, sentence by sentence. This makes the structure feel unfamiliar and helps you focus on each sentence more carefully rather than on the whole piece.
Use Proper Format and Size When Sharing
When sharing documents, it’s important to consider how easy they’ll be for someone else to download and open, especially if you’re sending them as PDFs. Two simple ways to make sharing easier and more professional are to merge your documents and compress them before sending.
You can merge PDFs online with iScanner tool to combine several pages into a single file, which cuts down on the number of attachments you send. If the merged file is too heavy, you can compress PDFs with iScanner to make them faster to send and easier to store.
Keep Privacy in Mind
Always think before forwarding messages, sharing documents, or adding someone to a group chat. Not everyone wants their personal details shared, even if it’s just an email.
Ask before sharing photos. Whether it’s a screenshot from a team meeting, a social media tag, or a picture from an event, make sure everyone is okay with it.
When sending files, double-check the permissions so you’re not accidentally giving public access to sensitive documents.
If you’re sending emails to people who are unfamiliar with one another, make sure to use BCC. It keeps everyone’s information private and prevents revealing someone’s email address without permission.
