What an email is
An email is an electronic message sent from one computer to another that can also include attachments: documents, pictures, sounds and even computer programs.
Although it’s much faster and easier to use than the post, snail mail, the two have many things in common: you send an email to a mail server (an electronic post office) where it is stored in a mailbox, which holds incoming mail until the recipient downloads it. Users are given an email address and a password by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
A typical email address has three parts:
username@mail.kz
username – a person’s name or nickname
the @ sing means ‘at’
the domain name or network address: the mail server where the account is located. The final part of it, the top-lever domain, adds information about it, e.g. .com = company, .ogr = non profit institution, .co.uk = a company in the UK, . ru = Russia, .kz = Kazakhstan, etc.

Anatomy of an email

Email usually have two main parts.
1 The header generally include these:
TO (name and address of the recipient)
CC (carbon copy sent to another addressee)
BCC (blank/blind carbon copy)
SUBJECT (topic of the massage)
2 The body (the massage itself)
Some email programs also include a signature, with added information about the sender, at the end of the message.
You can make your message look more expressive or attractive by using smileys (also called emotions): little pictures either made with characters from the keyboard such as :-) for happy, :-o surprised, :-( sad, etc. or downloaded images and animations.

Spam

Spam, or junk email, is the name given to unwanted messages, mainly commercial advertising. Some companies, spammers, use it extensively because it’s cheaper than other types of advertising: you or your Internet Service Provider pay for it.


Mailing lists and newsgroups

A mailing list is a basic type of discussion group that uses email to communicate. The messages are distributed to all the subscribers, i.e. everyone who belongs to the list.
Newsgroups are similar. The main difference is that the message is not sent to someone’s mail server but to a bulletin board where everybody can read and answer the message.