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four rules for traveling the emoticon highway
1. Pick your spots: Smileys and frownies are fine for chats with friends, but best avoided with strangers. "If a smiley is sent to me from someone I would like smiling at me, that's good," messaged Mike Poskozim of Minneapolis. "If a smiley is sent from some jerk, I would resent the presumptuousness." In formal correspondence, don't even think about it. Using emoticons in electronic cover letters is "stepping over the line," says Monmouth University Prof. David Strohmetz.

2. Don't overdo it: Don't unleash a barrage of emoticons on a receiver who is less Netspeak-savvy than you are. It will only confuse them, and could raise concerns about your emotional state. "I sometimes wonder if perhaps the writer was needing some sort of a Prozac/Xanax cocktail," wrote Shannon Worden. Another reader, Joy Anderson, uses emoticons sparingly, and wonders when she does if they make her "come across as juvenile and annoyingly perky."

3. Don't ruin the joke: Like laugh tracks, smileys are enemies of satire. "It spoils the joke if you put on a smiley face," said emoticon inventor Scott Fahlman. "I prefer to leave people wondering."

4. You're still responsible: An emoticon at the end of an offensive or insulting remark "doesn't let you off the hook," said Fahlman. "If I say a woman's place is in front of the stove, I'm still in trouble. The smiley face doesn't help."
Copyright 2005 Star Tribune.