Good messages don't wear plaid

Tarting up your online messages with asterisks, exclamation points, or all-capital letters are the online equivalent of shouting. They're the online equivalent of wearing loud, tasteless golf clothing to a business function. You will often see this sort of thing--subject lines in e-mail, newsgroup messages, or classified ads peppered with all-caps or multiple exclamation points, asterisks, and such. But customers don't like being shouted at. Visual gimmicks with caps or punctuation lose their edge and quickly become overused. Stick with good, effective writing. It always works and it shows you're a pro.