In business, first impressions can make or break you.

Flubbing names, engaging in salacious office gossip or sharing a bawdy joke can quickly brand you as the office idiot, workplace rumor monger or incorrigible perv.

And you can do that all, in a matter of seconds — in just one e-mail.

There's no doubt e-mail has made work easier and more convenient. You can "talk" to people in different time zones, converse with someone in another country or work while padding around in your jammies at home. (Not to mention it's become the weapon of choice for cowardly, passive-aggressive co-workers who fire off an e-mail and bolt — afraid to say stuff to your face. But that's a different topic.)

E-mail etiquette, or netiquette, is nothing new. But with its pervasiveness in business, it never hurts to get a quick refresher course on e-mail dos and don'ts.

A survey in January found that 71 percent of managers said e-mail is their most common method of communication at work, up from 27 percent five years ago. Just 13 percent of the senior executives polled said they relied on telephone conversations as their main means of communication, according to OfficeTeam, who developed the survey.

Sometimes, e-mail becomes the first, and only, mode of communication you'll share in a business relationship. So it is critical to put your best virtual foot forward.

"E-mail makes it possible to offend so many people at once with one e-mail," said Marie Mayer, communications specialist with information technology services at Iowa State University.

Mayer says the first thing to consider before dashing off an e-mail: Who is your audience, and what makes you credible with that person or group?

Is this message being sent to the CEO of the company? Or is it a short note to confirm a brainstorming meeting with co-workers?

It's also important to remember that 70 percent to 80 percent of what we convey in a message to someone comes from nonverbal cues, like body language or tone, Mayer said. "They're not there in e-mail."

For example, some people perceive using all capitals as yelling.

But Mayer said she will occasionally put things in caps if she wants a portion of the message to stand out, or will set it off from the rest of the text. "I avoid bolding."

Mayer's other tips for smoother e-mail correspondence: