When I reply to someones message, the stuff in his message is also put into my reply. Whats the deal with that?
A. That’s called “quoting” and it’s put there for several reasons. First, you can easily refer to the original author’s text when writing your response. Second, you can leave some of his stuff in there to add context to your message. That way, people won’t have to go back and forth to see what you’re replying to. Q. Wow, what a great idea. I love context. I think I’ll leave his entire post in there. A. Bad idea. Really, we all saw his signature the first time. We know what it looks like. We don’t need to see it again. Please cut out the parts that aren’t relevant to your reply. It is also good practice to avoid “double-quoting”–quoting the author’s quote of the guy before him. Don’t do this unless what that guy said is also quite applicable to the context of your reply.
