LESSON
9
E-MAIL
I.
Consider the
following questions
in the
group of
four.
A spokesperson will report on your discussion
to the whole group.
1. Have you ever heard about e-mail?
2. Can e-mail messages be sent without a
computer?
3. What kind of possibilities does e-mail offer
to people in the world?
5. What is the difference between the Internet
Explorer and an e-mail program?
II.
Read the text below and
check
its comprehension.
E-mail, in computer science, is an
abbreviation of the term electronic mail, method of transmitting data or text
files from one computer to another over an internet, intranet, or the Internet.
E-mail enables computer users to send messages and data quickly through a local
area network or beyond through a nationwide or worldwide communication network.
E-mail came into widespread use in the 1990s and has become a major development
in business and personal communications.
E-mail users create and send
messages from individual computers using commercial e-mail programs or
mail-user agents (MUAs). Most of these programs have a text editor for
composing messages. The user sends a message to one or more recipients by
specifying destination addresses. When a user sends an e-mail message to
several recipients at once, it is sometimes called broadcasting.
The address of an e-mail message
includes the source and destination of
the message. Different addressing
conventions are used depending upon the
e-mail destination. An
interoffice message distributed over
an intranet, or inter-nal computer network, may have a simple scheme, such as the employee’s name, for the
e-mail address. E-mail messages sent outside
of an intranet are addressed according to the following
convention: The first part of the address contains the user’s name,
followed by the symbol @, the domain name, the institution’s or
organization’s name, and finally the country name.
A typical e-mail address might be sally@abc.com. In this example sally is the user’s name, abc is the domain name — the specific
company, organiza-tion, or institution that the e-mail message is
sent to or from, and the suffix com
indicates the type of organization
that abc belongs to — com for com-mercial, org for organization,
edu
for educational, mil for military,
and gov for governmental. An e-mail
message that originates outside the
E-mail data travels from
the sender’s computer to a network tool called a message transfer agent (MTA) that,
depending on the address, either delivers the message within that network of
computers or sends it to another MTA for distribution over the Internet. The
data file is eventually delivered to the private mailbox of the recipient, who
retrieves and reads it using an e-mail
program or MUA. The recipient may delete the message, store it, reply to it, or
forward it to others.
Modems are important
devices that have allowed for the use of e-mail beyond local area networks.
Modems convert a computer’s binary language into an analog signal and transmit
the signal over ordinary telephone lines. Modems may be used to send e-mail
messages to any destination in the world that has modems and computers able to
receive messages.
E-mail messages display
technical information called headers and footers above and below the main message body.
In part, headers and footers record the sender’s and recipient’s names and e-mail
addresses, the times and dates of message transmission and receipt, and
the subject of the message.
In addition to the plain
text contained in the body of regular e-mail messa-ges, an increasing number of e-mail programs allow the user to send sepa-rate files attached to e-mail transmissions.
This allows the user to append large text- or graphics-based files to e-mail
messages.
E-mail has had a great
impact on the amount of information sent world-wide. It has become an important method of transmitting information
previo-usly relayed via regular mail,
telephone, courier, fax, television, and radio. In 1995 alone, e-mail users
sent approximately 25 billion messages.
Comprehension
Check
Up
1. How
big is the e-mail service area? 2. How can a person send messages from one computer to another? 3. When
did e-mail come into widespread use? 4. What can you say about commercial
e-mail programs? 5. Is there a special form for any e-mail address? 6. What is
it a modem? 7. What is the role of
headers and footers? 8. How many e-mail
messages were sent in 1995?
III.
Choose the best answer.
1. The word e-mail
refers to …
a) an everyday mail; b) an employee’s mail
address; c) an electronic mail.
2. The best explanation of the expression to come into widespread use might be …
a) to gain success; b) to cover a wide field
(to be scattered far and wide); c)
to come into
action.
3. The verb broadcast means …
a) to sail; b) to send out a message (by radio,
TV. or Internet) c) to talk to smb.
4. The word destination
means …
a) (place) a person (vehicle or message) is
going to; b) destiny; c) a desk.
5. The verb to retrieve refers to …
a) to save smb. or smth.; b) to allow
information to be brought back; c) to talk or write again about smth.
6. The word modem
means …
a) a modern device; b) a device used for
sending and receiving data over telephone lines; c) a model.
7. The best explanation of the domain
name might be …
a) a field of knowledge; b) a structure
containing groups of users; c) a server.
8. The verb to delete means …
a) to bring damages to; b) to leave out (a
word); c) to decrease.
9. The word courier means …
a) a newspaper’s name; b) a person, who carries
messages; c) a sportsman.
10. The verb to convert can be paraphrased
as …
a) to pack; b) to transform; c) to decode.
11. The word convention means …
a) a custom way of doing things; b)
International Telecommunication Congress; c) a place (or structure) where users
can exchange their opinions (information).
12. The verb to append stands for …
a) to appoint to smth.; b) to add smth. to a
formal paper or book; c) to call on smb.
13. The word Intranet means …
a) an interactive game; b) an internal computer
network; c) a special program.
IV.
Use the
right verb from those given below.
to delete, to deliver,
to manage, to mail, to transmit, to travel, to originate, to select, to
distribute, to contain, to indicate, to post, to make it possible, to record.
1. Modems are communications devices that enable computers … informa-tion over telephone lines. 2. An interoffice
message … overan intranet. 3. To replace an existing file you should … the file
from the File Name list. 4. MS-DOS displays “Are you sure?” if you try … all
files in the working drive. 5. Any e-mail message … the user’s name, the
symbol @, the domain name, the organization’s name and the country name. 6. If
you want … an e-mail message outside your native country, you should … a
supplementary suffix. 7. Mail is easy to send; it’s more difficult …. 8. Athena
is a free network “magazine”. 8. To
subscribe … a request to Jim McCabe, McCABE @ MTUS5. 9. This is the first time
this article … to “news answers”. 10.
You
can … the reference card by sending an “INFO RECORD” command. 11. E-mail … to send messages and data quickly through a worldwide communication
network. 12. E-mail data … from
the sender’s computer to a message transfer
agent. 13. Headers and footers … all necessary information about a message
being sent. 14. As a rule date files … to the private mailbox.
V.
Are the following
statements True or False?
1. E-mail provides an efficient
means of storing data for reference purposes. 2. The used modem sends a message
to one or more recipients by specifying destination addresses. 3. Different
addressing conventions are used depending upon the e-mail destination. 4. The
principal difference between Intranet and Internet is that Internet enables
users to send data.
VI. Read the addressing conventions given below. Imagine what kind of
information these addresses are supposed to contain.
Model: rec. music classical @ psicom
Using this address you can get some information
about famous composers and musicians, records and concerts.
1. comp. graphics animation – request @ think.
com
2. nasa news @ space. mit. edu.
3. rec. music beatles @ psi. com.
4. comp. archives – request @ csl. com.
5. misc. consumers. house – request @ psi. com.
6. news sattelite – request @ edu. ru
7. misc. jobs. offered @ csl. com.
8. alt. radio scanners @ net. ru
9. alt gourmand @ psi. com
10. alt. internet. services @ net. Ru
VII. Divide the text into paragraphs.
VIII. Express the main idea of each paragraph in one sentence.
IX. Summarize the text and be ready to retell it.
X. Speak on pros and cons of e-mail.