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Dear readers: I keep receiving e-mail messages from many senders who refuse to begin sentences with capital letters or observe other writing standards. An actual example:

"after giving this some thought i have the following recommendation to make. I think we should take traveler checks with us and not ALL cash. i did not see any emails that the vouchers were wrongso i will approve them tomorrow morning. in addition - the decision about the driver in Rome. do we want to keep him?"

Obviously, this sender's shift key does work as there were capitals used at times. So, why the disregard by an educated and intelligent person for the standards of writing?

When communicating in any form, our goal should be clarity. By ignoring standards of composition, we muddy the waters. The writer may have been able to tap out his message two seconds faster, but now the reader must add back that precious time and more to decode the poorly composed message.

The loss of capitalization and punctuation in standard e-mail may stem from the use of wireless hand-helds and personal digital assistants with their tiny keyboards and styluses. Users of such devices sometimes feel that the disclaimer at the end of their e-mail, "Sent from my wireless hand-held device," is a license to use poor grammar and spelling.

It's not. We should always do what we can to send an intelligent and clear message, even when faced with the limitations of a hand-held.

The above message was sent via standard e-mail, not a hand-held. So, it doesn't even qualify for that excuse.

I find it difficult to accept the idea that people are so busy that they cannot use proper writing conventions when using e-mail. Most of us learned to type using those conventions, and it would seem to take an additional effort to retrain that muscle memory. So, why do it?

While e-mail may be a more relaxed form of communication, we should not lose our sense of responsibility to others when using it. Good manners are about thinking of others before us and treating them with respect and courtesy in all our actions - even those dominated by technology.

Users of e-mail must remember that you send a message about yourself with every message you send. Make your best effort to ensure the message you send is a proper reflection of you.

In the embrace of new technology, good manners never go out of style.