It's an option under e-mail preferences in your e-mail program to include the original message (or not) in your reply and to put your reply at the top or the bottom of the message It's easier to read the reply at the top because what you're reading is the latest information and you don't have to plow through miles of e-mail headers to get to the reply.

I've noticed that AOL people generally do not include the original message in their replies which drives me nuts! I get and respond to so much e-mail that if the original message isn't there I have NO idea what they're talking about or what the original message or question was about. Makes it MUCH harder to correspond.

Good netiquette also suggests using the bcc field to avoid the miles of e-mail headers on forwarded e-mails.

Some newsreaders and newsgroups (anyone here do newsgroups?) prefer the current response at the bottom but I find that confusing.