A universal feature of e-mail programs is the Subject field. It's a place for you to enter a short description of what the message is about. The recipient sees the subject and your name in an incoming-messages list when he or she picks up mail. Because many e-mail users find a hundred or more messages on their computer every morning, your recipient is going to have to choose in what order to read messages — so state your subject as clearly as possible.

Here are some examples of subject lines:

Poor: "Need information"

Fair: "Real estate question"

Better: "About the Binkley sale"

Best: "Closing date for Binkley?"

Most e-mail programs let you have a blank subject, but we wish they would at least warn you when you forget the subject line. Always include a subject.