Everybody knows there are rules regarding punctuation. This article isn't about them.

I'm on a lot of e-mail lists; a great many people feel I should be kept abreast of developments at their companies, career milestones of the artists they represent, legislative or electoral triumphs and outrages, and too much more. And though I find some of the news they herald noteworthy, more often than not they compensate for mundane content with an inappropriate, nay, giddy level of enthusiasm. The primary means of expressing this overwrought intensity? The exclamation point.

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Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner are the principals of Editorial Emergency, a Los Angeles-based copywriting agency. Since opening its doors in 2005, EE has wrangled verbiage for the Honda Civic Tour, Disney Interactive Studios, Borders, Target, Mattel, Sony, Universal, EMI/Capitol and assorted other content-hungry customers. Click here to read more articles by Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner.