论文信息 - The rhetoric of e-mail: an analysis of style

The rhetoric of e-mail: an analysis of style

The paper presents the results of a stylistic analysis of 200 samples of e-mail memoranda gathered from four organizations. Through systematic counting of textual features such as sentence and paragraph length, grammatical types of sentence, and word choice, the study examines patterns of rhetorical choice common to electronic mail. In this sample, short serial sentences dominated, and writers preferred active verbs over other forms, indicating composing processes for e-mail are rudimentary and somewhat spontaneous.

R. P. Rice

[1] Edward H. Sewell,et al. Communicating by Electronic Mail , 1988 .

[2] J. E. Porter. E-Mail and Variables of Rhetorical Form , 1993 .

[3] C. Spinuzzi,et al. A different kind of forum: rethinking rhetorical strategies for electronic text media , 1994 .

[4] Lee Sproull,et al. Reducing social context cues: electronic mail in organizational communication , 1986 .

[5] R. B. Horowitz,et al. Stylistic guidelines for e-mail , 1994 .

[6] R. A. Lindeborg. The irresistible electronic message of the 1990s: a case study , 1993 .