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Hi, Terry, It is my view that a well edited use of the reply function enables a better grasp of the prior argument because it locates the relevant point in the discussion -- the point on which the present post replies. This editorial -- and designerly -- courtesy means that you do not require your reader to review and read through the entire prior discussion when all you do is respond to one point. Even using one-by-one posts, it helps to identify the issue under review without responding to the entire previous discussion. Those who study rhetoric -- like those who edit books and journals -- tend to believe that it is inappropriate to review the entire discussion each and every time one wishes to respond to a single point. If we did that, every book and every article would become so cluttered that people would do nothing but review the past. Appropriate reference to the _specific_ topic under consideration constitutes best practice in most media. I think this is also true of discussion list posts, both in single note format and in digest, as well as on the web interface. Yours, Ken On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 07:43:01 +0100, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >For those of us that use the normal emails, having all the preceding parts >of an argument included with the same email is a great advantage and saves a >huge amount of time if one needs to refer to them. It costs nothing in time >if one does not. For us, ithas a huge time cost if people deliberately edit >their emails to only include the previous post because it forces us to log >into Jiscmail to check the previous arguments.