Regarding writing your important data: I hope students SPREAD THE WORD (sent to all students)

Students,
Every year I run into the same problem. And though this message may not help me that much, at least it will help other teachers in the following years. Above all, spread the word around campus so we can all live in a computer-friendly society.
    YOU MUST WRITE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES SO THERE IS NO DOUBT WHAT EACH LETTER OR NUMERAL STANDS FOR.
    That usually means you must slow down and maybe even write childishly. There is a high level of redundancy in ordinary language, dates, etc. so that, for example, no matter how poorly one writes one's name as (for example) Thomas, the reader can see it's Thomas. No matter how poorly one writes the year (if it's the current year, 2009) readers know what's supposed to be there, even though the "9" may look like a 7. (Referring to a previous year, however, is different: "He was arrested for vagrancy in 2007" must be written carefully or an important fact may be confused as 2009.
    Same with domains. It's not that important to write clearly @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com because the domain is recognizable no matter how poorly one writes the "y" in yahoo.
    BUT (and I hope students remember this and SPREAD THE WORD to your classmates)
    You cannot risk writing poorly if there is no level of redundancy or recognition in what you write. People CANNOT GUESS what your phone number is, whether it should be a 3 or a 9, if you write poorly. This is especially the case with cell phone numbers because there are more numbers where one mistake can mean you'll never again see that good-looking boy you met on the train because you wrote your cell phone number poorly; you'll never receive that phone call for a possibly good job; you'll never be contacted by the chairman of a college department because they sent you email to jack54 when your real address is jack59 but you wrote your 4 like a 9.
    Do you see my point? You MUST get into the habit of writing these important data clearly. You can scribble poorly the words, "My mother doesn't work" and most people can understand what you wrote even though several letters are poorly scripted. But they can't guess your email.
    And apart from guessing, people have more important things to do than try to figure out your email address.
    What does this mean when you write?
    First, write slowly.
    Second, write clearly.
    But even if you follow the above rules you still must follow a third rule: WRITE DISTINCTIVELY. No matter how slowly you write, if you write l instead of L there's going to be problems. 1 can mean 1 or L. Same with zero. Unless you slash your o's to clearly distinguish them from 0 there will be confusion. Same with 4. Do NOT write 4 like this (but I cannot show you how to write 4 because the keyboard doesn't have that character). A four should be written like an upside down pitchfork. They're called BLOCK LETTERS, the way that children write. Same with 7. I advise always putting a slash through the 7 so people cannot confuse a 7 with a 9. 2s and Zs are another problem. Always write your Z with very straight lines so they cannot be confused with 2; besides I would put a loop before the bottom line of the two to make sure a 2 is not confused with a z.
    Frankly this should be taught at the grade-school level. The entire world is now computerized. That means every day millions of email addresses are being exchanged daily. Cell phone numbers are being exchanged daily, on subways, in trains, on the street. You MUST LEARN that others cannot guess what your number or email address is. Frankly, you must act like an adult and write like a child! An adult KNOWS the other person does not KNOW what their number is.
    But I must say that 99% of you wrote your addresses very well. So this email may not apply to you but to the few who didn't write their numbers well. (In a few cases I take responsibility for mistyping.) Actually, the few problems emerged in the film class, so this email probably doesn't apply to you if you're not from that class; and it probably doesn't even apply to the film class since the students who wrote their email addresses poorly will not even receive this email from me! I'll have to talk to those students in class.
    Still, I'm writing this so you can spread the word. Also I'm not sure how you write your cell phone numbers to your friends or your email addresses on other occasions. So it's well worth reminding you. Do NOT write l when you can write L and clearly separate 1 from L. Do not write 0 when you can put a slash through it and make certain readers know it's zero and not oh. Do not write 4 so it looks like a 9 or even a 7. The four should be written in inverted pitchfork style. The nine should have distinctive curves in it (it should be very curvy, not lazily straight) and the 7 should have a horizontal slash to be doubly sure.