Emails get a tough-talking to

Concerned your emails may not be getting the right message across? Simply click the "tough-talking" button and let your computer do the rest.

Researchers claim they have developed a system capable of analysing and changing the tone of an email to make you sound tough, extrovert or emotional - depending on the image you want to portray.

So you can opt for the toughminded option when calling for a business meeting, but select the extrovert button when trying to impress a member of the opposite sex with your charm and charisma.

The system could, they say, be built into email software allowing users to automatically alter the personality of their email by simply selecting the text they want to change and clicking on a button.

"Conventional style checkers identify a single set of 'bad' expressions, and propose alternative 'good' expressions," said Alastair Gill, one of the developers of the software. "In contrast, our style checker knows that a particular word may be good for projecting one personality type, but bad for another."

The team analysed thousands of emails to discover the keys to email personality. They showed people with an extroverted personality are more informal - using terms like "hi", instead of introverts' "hello".

Extroverts' relaxed social style also includes expressions such as "catch up" and "take care". Their more confident and assertive terms include "want", "able" and "need (to)", rather than "trying" or "going (to)", more popular with introverts.

Non-standard punctuations such as the winking face ;-) and *sigh* are also very much an extrovert's behaviour. The prototype of the personality style checker allows you to be as tough-minded, extroverted and emotional as you like.

The user is able to adjust each of these qualities from low through to high, and the programme will check the user's written email and suggest changes in the text that can be accepted or rejected, as with a normal spell checker.

Mr Gill and a team from Glasgow University developed the style checker from a database that was compiled from an online questionnaire involving samples of text written by real people.

For example, the tough-talking "Please call me urgently" could be watered down by the emotional "Hello, I am trying to get in contact with you you, could you please telephone me?"