When you’re trying to get across a delicate point, how you display your words can be as important as the words themselves. That’s why I recently changed the font in my personal e-mails from 14-point Tempus Sans ITC in maroon on a white background to 14-point Garamond in navy on a white background. (Your system and browser will decide whether you can see the font samples.)

You wouldn’t think a simple font change could make a huge difference in how people perceive your messages. But it can. After I made the change, my brother wrote to say how happy he was that I’d dumped the old font. A business associate almost immediately stopped complaining that my e-mails were too long, even though they were the same length they’d always been.

So if you want people to take the time to read what you have to say, here are some tips on how to make your messages look on the screen:

• Not too big, not too small. Like the Three Bears’ goal for their porridge, you want your type size to be just right. That means it shouldn’t be too big—which was the problem with my Tempus Sans ITC. Though I was shooting for readability when I chose it, the font was so large it appeared the text of my e-mails was spreading across the screen like a fungus. Garamond is only slightly smaller, but it’s a more compact font and seems to take up less space.

The same problem occurs when a font is too small. My brother writes in 10-point Arial. In long paragraphs, it looks like someone sprayed the screen with Stickum and threw a handful of coarse black pepper at it. Forcing people to read unbroken passages of 10-point Arial could replace water-boarding as a form of torture. Don’t compose e-mails in any font smaller than 12 point.

• Not to loud, not too soft. As with font size, colors and background should be a study in balance. It doesn’t matter how lovely your e-mail looks if no one can read the content. The harder people have to work to get at your message, the less likely they’ll bother. Be careful not to choose an e-mail background that’s so dark or busy people have difficulty deciphering the text. And don’t choose light text colors such as electric green, yellow, orange, light pink, or any color that’s a close match to the background.

• Not too harsh, not too timid. How many years have we been writing e-mails and posting comments to blogs? So everyone knows by now that typing in all-caps is the online equivalent of SHOUTING, right? Apparently not because a lot of people still do it.

Please don’t shout unless you actually intend to shout. And if you intend to shout, please have a good reason for shouting. But even if you have a good reason for shouting, it’s not wise to shout nonstop for more than a few words. If you shout nonstop for three paragraphs, the people reading your e-mail will mentally hear one note:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!

They won’t hear the points you’re trying to make in your e-mail anymore than they would if you were shouting into their faces.

And just as you shouldn’t all-cap your way through e-mails, don’t lowercase your way through them, either. You don’t want to listen to people speaking in a monotone. Writing without benefit of both upper- and lowercase letters is the visual equivalent. While it’s not as hard on the eyes as reading all-caps, it can be distracting. That may not matter in informal notes. But if you’re trying to make a serious point, take the time to tap the shift key.