Description

• an exchange of emails between two people.
• Informal tone
• Incomplete sentences
• Messages broken down into a few short paragraphs.
• Morgan uses his school email address, while Barton uses a gmail address.
• both responded straight from previous message
• kept original messages underneath while responding
• address each other by first names
• Use of abbreviations
• exclamation points
• smiley-face things
• Fairly simple sentences
• message from Barton to Morgan included an attachment
• Barton's response came less than an hour after Morgan sent his message

Analysis

The first email from Matt was written and sent to a number of people. While the message seems professional in content, there are parts of it that seem informal: "I had you guys in mind . . ." and he uses an abbreviation, CFP rather than writing out Call For Papers. In the message, he asks for people in the computer and writing community to contribute work for a collection of essays about wikis for a book that he is putting together.

Morgan's reply to Matt is written in an informal tone, "looks like you're settling in to SCSU," "hope they gave you a passable office . . . ." There is no greeting except for the addressee's name. In the message, Morgan informs Matt that he is working on a wiki writing text and will contribute something for his book shortly. When Morgan signed his name at the end, he simply wrote "mike."

Matt replied to Morgan's message shortly -- within an hour. This message from Matt seems more intimate than the first. He is only addressing one person this time rather than a group of people. The response is informal, he uses smiley-face things and abbreviations; "MN," rather than Minnesota and "AC," rather than air conditioning. He describes his new office and what he's been up to since moving to Minnesota. He uses incomplete sentences. "Be nice to go out sometime for a brew," "not sure what you mean by 'wiki writing text,' . . . ." He doesn't sign his name at the end, or maybe he did and it was cut off.

Interpretation

Throughout the exchanges of emails between M C Morgan and Matt Barton, it can be seen that they both teach at universities -- one at BSU and the other at SCSU. In Barton's first email, he asks numerous people to contribute essays for a book that he is editing about wikis. Morgan seems enthusiastic that Barton is starting a book before he starts teching. He replies that he will make a contribution to the book soon and asks him about his office and classroom at SCSU.

Barton replies to Morgan's message in a friendly tone. Barton addresses Morgan by his first name and describes his new office to Morgan. In another paragraph, he states that he is unsure about what Morgan meant by a wiki writing text. He proposes the idea of sharing resources, one would assume about wikis.