A Twitter message or "tweet" can be made up of several elements. Some are added to the tweet by Twitter or the Twitter client. Some are integrated into the 140 characters of the tweet.

In the image below, you'll find a tweet captured from within the Seesmic social media client with various elements of the tweet labeled. The elements and their location on the screen will be similar in most Twitter clients.

• Username - The username (or "handle") of the original sender of that tweet typically appears before the actual tweet. As in the image above, it is often displayed in bold text. If you don't recognize the username as someone you follow on Twitter, it is likely that you are looking at the username of the person who created the tweet, which one of the people you do follow then retweeted.
• Message in 140 characters or less - The message is the actual content of the tweet. Tweets are limited to 140 characters. In most clients, the tweet is located right after or below the username of the original sender.
• Mention - A mention occurs when someone includes another person's username preceded by the "@" sign in the body of their tweet. By including the "@" sign immediately before the username (no spaces), a link to that person's Twitter profile is generated in most clients.
• Shortened URLs - Many tweets include URLs to web content Twitter users want to share with their followers. Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, it is difficult to fit most URLs into a tweet. To save characters, many Twitter users use URL-shortening services to create a shorter "alias" URL that leads to the web content they wish to share. Many Twitter services or clients, and Twitter.com, include built-in, automatic URL shortening.
• Timestamp - The timestamp of a tweet is displayed below the actual tweet on most clients. As in the image above, it may be displayed in a lighter font color to differentiate it from the actual tweet. The timestamp shows how long ago that tweet was posted to Twitter.
• Twitter client - The Twitter client shows what service or client the user posted the tweet from. It is displayed below the actual tweet on most clients and may be displayed in a lighter font color to differentiate it from the actual tweet. The Twitter client can be Twitter.com, another web-based client, a desktop client or a client for a mobile device.

Other commonly used features

• Hash tags: Keywords preceded by the "#" symbol (e.g. #netlit or #sxsw). These are used to make it easier to search for your tweet or all tweets on a particular topic. Hash tags can be used to collate a list of posts on any theme or topic. Conference organizers commonly create a conference hashtag in advance of the event and ask attendees to use that tag for tweets related to the conference, allowing others to follow the stream of comments. 
• DM (Direct Message):  A message sent directly to you. A DM works like a private email; it doesn't appear in the public twitter stream. To send a DM, start the message with "DM username" or "D username"  (note the @ symbol is optional when sending Direct Messages) where username is the twitter handle of the person you want the message to go to. The other person must be following you in order to receive your DM.
• RT (Retweet): A message originally posted by someone else. Retweeting a message is a way to forward someone else's message to your followers and give credit to the original author. Usually used at the beginning of the message such as "RT @username the original message..." You can add your own comment if you have enough characters left. Sometimes  you'll see "via @username" used at the end of a message to give credit to the original poster. Both of these methods let the original poster know you've forwarded their message and lets your followers discover new people they might be interested in following.
• MT (Modified tweet): Sometimes you want to make changes to an original tweet before passing it along to your followers. Adding MT at the beginning of the modified message lets people know you've changed the message somewhat but still credits the original and allows followers to click on the original poster's twitter handle (@username) to see the post you modified.

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