How to Revise an Email So That People Will Read It

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/silverman/2009/04/how-to-revise-an-email-so-that.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-WEEKLY_HOTLIST-_-APR_2009-_-HOTLIST0417

by dreamz • 17 years ago

13 9 17 years ago

blogs.harvardbusiness.org

tokenadult• 17 years ago

Search YC

http://searchyc.com/How+to+Revise+an+Email

is your friend for finding duplicate submissions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562447

muhamm2• 17 years ago

If this is a duplicate, it's one that a lot of people could benefit from.

Summary:

1. Delete redundancies. 2. Use numbers and specifics instead of adverbs and adjectives. 3. Add missing context. 4. Focus on the strongest argument. 5. Delete off-topic material. 6. Seek out equivocation and remove it. 7. Kill your favorites. 8. Delete anything written in the heat of emotion. 9. Shorten. 10. Give it a day.

jpwagner• 17 years ago

First 9 are good.

Who has "a day" to give?

mark_h• 17 years ago

Summarising even further... note that most of those involve "delete"!

At least, that's what I usually end up doing. The more concise it is, the easier it is to absorb. It's quite sobering how long it can take to get something that concise though.

thorax2• 17 years ago

If I have multiple points to describe on an important topic, I typically make an outline, and bold a 1-3 word summary for each bullet. As corporate-monkey as that is, it makes it very easy to skim without letting my managers overlook pieces I feel are important.

If they're only going to spend 20 seconds glancing at the response, I want it to be a breadth-first scan of the bolded items rather than a depth-first scan of the first paragraph.

For what it's worth, every management team I've worked under in the past decade of software development has loved it. I feel "uncool" for typing this here, but maybe it'll help someone to try the same approach (in addition to the great revising steps listed in the article).

muhamm2• 17 years ago

I don't find it particularly uncool to convey your meaning as effectively as you can, especially when, in a corporate environment, there is so much other data competing for the attention of your reader. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to try to use this myself.

derefr• 17 years ago

Have you tried eliminating the body of the message, and just sending the bullet-points? If the reader appreciates it because they're not going to read the rest of the message, why give them the rest of the message?

thorax2• 17 years ago

Good point. The terse details are there for two reasons:

* Stakeholders need specifics -- While some managers just need to skim, some peers and deeper stakeholders on the thread require details to validate the points because it impacts them specifically.

* Managers want access to details -- The manager wants to be able to skim, but also have details on a specific item if they choose to dive into it (now or later). It's hard to tell which ones these will be, so providing extra information after the heading allows them to pick and choose without obstructing their quick-skim-ability.

ALee• 17 years ago

I would recommend Strunk and White's Elements of Style to help. This post was essentially that with a little hastiness for the reader built in. -A

How to Revise an Email So That People Will Read It

Related Stories