7 ms·

One thing that can take a while to remember, if you've generally ran with the "gifted" crowd in school (Read: top 10% reading comprehension scores on the SAT),

• matte_black 9y ago
  Generally, people say to shorten a text because the best way to write a great text is to take a good text and cut out anything that isn't great, not because the audience has poor reading skills.
  • pessimizer 9y ago
    > the best way to write a great text is to take a good text and cut out anything that isn't great This is for entertainment or marketing purposes, though.
    • epicide 9y ago
      Possibly, but the people reading resumes are still subject to boredom and short attention spans.
• bloopernova 9y ago
  That's really difficult for me. I always end up writing novels for emails then wondering why people only answered the first question. (and they missed out parts (b) and (c) of the question, plus they didn't read the linked web pages supporting my assertions) Yes, I really need to cut back on how much I type there, but I have trouble communicating in person so text is just so much more comfortable for me. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
  • chadgeidel 9y ago
    Some ideas I've had luck with: Have one actionable item per email. State a question in the subject. Expect a clear answer (not quite "yes/no" but something definite). Spend a short time (one or two paragraphs describing the question in detail, but don't make it longer than that. End the email with the question in the subject asked again. EDIT: If you find that you need to have a conversation, either walk over to their desk or pick up the phone.
  • moron4hire 9y ago
    I've found that leading people into a back and forth conversation where I can guide them through those same points, rather than try to get them all out at once, works better. Just go one at a time until you are sure they are on the same page. I also try to eliminate parentheticals. Branching lines of thought are very difficult for most people.
    • saganus 9y ago
      "Branching lines of thought are very difficult for most people." This is something that I hadn't thought about but now that you mention it, it does seem to match what I've experienced. Nice catch.
    • cr0sh 9y ago
      > Branching lines of thought are very difficult for most people. I haven't watched it, so this question might not be relevant - but how do you explain the popularity of shows like "Game of Thrones"? From what I gather, it has several various plot lines woven over and around multiple episodes and seasons. People also don't seem to have any problems deciphering the various "plot lines" within their own circles of family and friends (in my experience with people who seem to have waaaay too much drama in their lives). Is there something about "video" that makes it easier to parse in this fashion than text? Does emotional attachment to characters in such dramas (or personal involvement) make it easier to understand intertwined plot lines? Just musing on things here...hmm.
      • cm2012 9y ago
        Most people who watch GOT don't get all the plotlines. If you talk to regular showwatchers (not book), they regularly mistake Stannis for Tywin for Roose etc...They get enough of the gist to enjoy it.
      • moron4hire 9y ago
        I think most people enjoy GoT despite the story line. The content is otherwise quite gratuitous in the violence and sex departments, so it has a lot to offer to the most casual of observers without having a full grasp of the story line.
  • nkrisc 9y ago
    One thing I've done that has helped is after a single introductory sentence, list all my questions with numbered bullet points. Only put the actual question here. Any supporting info can be described in paragraphs below, numbered similarly. Aggressively edit your writing to remove all unnecessary words and information. You probably don't need 40% of the words you wrote. If your question has multiple parts, break them into separate, sequential questions. Lastly if the question is so complex that this doesn't work, and for whatever reason you can't talk to them in person, present them with what you believe the answer is and let them critique it. This won't always work for every scenario but it might be worth trying.
  • make3 9y ago
    I would suggest you use chat platforms like slack instead of email. The flow of conversations is more obvious that way. You can then ask one question, and work parts b and c into normal interaction. Once that's done, you can ask if they have the time to answer another question, and continue with the interaction.
  • dec0dedab0de 9y ago
    One thing that really bothers me in long emails is redundancy. Something like "Only one single widget is alone on the shelf" instead of "One widget is on the shelf."
    • zimpenfish 9y ago
      > "One widget is on the shelf." Where are the rest of them then?
      • drewmol 9y ago
        The shelf contains one widget
        • Izkata 9y ago
          The ambiguity is whether the second widget is on the table, in use, or if it even exists.
  • notyourwork 9y ago
    I had this problem as well and can offer you what has worked well for me: (Would love other's input.) 1. Place most important piece at the top. Answer the following question to your audience: What is the purpose of this email and how does it apply to me? 2. Bulleted or numbered lists are ideal for multiple questions/points. It visually divides, gives you ability to order most to least important and also allows someone an easy way to respond inline to each question. 3. Iterate on your first revision with goal of reducing length and maintaining intention. This takes practice and forces you to ask do I really need this line of text. 4. If you distribute to a large list, identify at the top the scope so those it doesn't apply to can discard. 5. If you are emailing a group and you need replies or action items for different people call this out. You can do this by calling each name out: @Joe - Can you help identify x? @Jane - Can you follow up with so and so? etc. This way their name is attached to it.
  • epicide 9y ago
    Don't feel the need to explain everything you mean. Some people will understand what you mean with very little. Others likely won't understand regardless of how much explanation you provide. Make everything that is critical super obvious. Bulleted questions is a great suggestion.
    • cm2012 9y ago
      > Some people will understand what you mean with very little. Others likely won't understand regardless of how much explanation you provide. Super true
  • manyxcxi 9y ago
    - After you write the novel, break it up into bullet points - Make each bullet point actionable/respondable - Condense the bullet points/trim the fat - Use sub-bullets as an aside or to provide narrative/opinion/background Now people have essentially been informed up front that you expect X number of things for them to respond to and they’ll be less likely to miss the stuff in the middle. You’ll also find that you’ll get the same information and intent across with your TL;DR bulletpoint summary, but in a way that doesn’t cause the reader to bail out. It’ll also make it easier for them to respond because you’ve essentially given them references names for each point they’d respond to.
  • rootusrootus 9y ago
    Allow me to be cynical for a moment. A big reason why people only answer the first question is they want to skip the harder ones that follow and hope the conversation will go off on a tangent instead. Yeah, that really depends on the content of the conversation, but I have seen that tactic used in so many situations (including non-email) that I assume it as the default reason. So I limit myself to one question per email.
  • froindt 9y ago
    I've embraced my relative youth and tried @tagging someone in an email body one time...and was surprised to learn Outlook actually supports it. I've since started tagging people in the body for specific items I need from them. Varying levels of success, if people are on the email and see themselves tagged in a specific part of the email, they know where to read carefully and what response I expect from them.
  • combatentropy 9y ago
    1. Put yourself in the reader's shoes. Imagine getting your email in the midst of all the other emails they get, all the other things they're thinking about, all the other problems, in and out of work, that they might be dealing with. 2. Read The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E. B. White (< 100 pages). 3. Read the first several chapters of On Writing Well, by William Zinnser (< 100 pages). (Don't like reading? Oh :)
  • grahamburger 9y ago
    I struggle with this too. Sometimes I will only ask the first question, let the recipient respond, and then ask the next question. It can give the interchange a more conversational feel and some people really prefer that.
• norswap 9y ago
  I was top 1% in school and I still dislike reading, because very often, it's unnecessary verbiage. As a senior PhD student, the advice I give my younger peers and master students regarding academic posters: you should be able to read it from across the room, or printing in A4 and held at arms' length. Most posters are horribly over-cramed. I see the same things in academic papers. The length is limited, but many people find a way around by including tons for mathematic, which is much denser. When I take the pain to go through it, I usually find all this math to be unnecessary (but it does give the paper the halo of serious research).
  • Cerium 9y ago
    A poster is only big so many people can see it at once. Otherwise it is no different than a single sheet executive summary.
  • Balgair 9y ago
    I agree! To combat this 'jargonification' and make ourselves better writers, some of the PhD and MS students at my alma mater decided to make a journal club for well written papers. Not papers that were good science, but just well written and easy to understand (in our field). We would submit papers and then go over them at lunch once a week. We found: 1) The appropriate metric for 'well written' is that you can read the whole thing aloud and understand the findings in the time it takes a person to eat a sandwich, a bag of chips, and drink a medium coffee. About 75 minutes. Anything more may be 'read' but not understood and anything less means you should have done more work. 2) Everyone loves jargon. The more obscure words the better. The more complicated and obfuscated, the better. I find that I want to grok the research. Most of my compatriots do not want to do that. However, we all think the same thing about everyone else. More complicated papers result in a 'treasure hunt' mentality that many researchers actually enjoy, it seems. The journal club evolved into a 'tennis game' of sorts where the submitter would lord over the others about their knowledge of the paper. i don't want to generalize too much, but I think this behavior of 'one-up-man-ship' and 'I-know-more-than-yoooou-dooo' is core to academia.
    • miranda_rights 9y ago
• dalbasal 9y ago
  I don’t think this is the reason, necessarily. I think it’s for the same reason elevator pitches are short. Shorter usually equates to better written, more relevant and the the point. I guess concise is a concise way of putting it. The writer has decided what’s relevant or not, so the reader doesn’t have to. There’s a tendency for people describing themselves (or their company, etc.) with too many loose end details. We also do this and could do that. ..not wanting to limit themselves or leave anything outside the frame. Imagine describing your diet. You could do it in 20 words, 200, or 2000. I’m trying to sort people into diet piles. I can do it with 20 words. If you use 200, that probably means I have to trim your 200 to 20, and sort from there.
• madamelic 9y ago
  >It's almost always a good idea to shorten/simplify any text meant for an unknown audience. Also, take a look at your resume and take off all acronyms unless they are well-known (eg: HTML) and reword any overly technical statement into simple words "Utilized X to lower the Y by leveraging Z technology which resulted in a 25% speed increase". Nah, do this: "Increased speed of [project] by 25% by leveraging [technology you mentioned on your resume]" I dislike all resumes that are overly technical and I can't imagine how recruiters feel about seeing borderline non-sense.
  • ashark 9y ago
    More generally, following a couple easy, basic rules like: 1) emphasize the most important verb by putting it first, and favor more-active and more-specific verbs over very general or passive ones, as in putting "increased" ahead of "utilized" and "leveraged", and 2) favor simple language ("leverage" or "utilize" can often just be "use", for example) because, counterintuitively for middling or poor writers, simpler language usually comes off as more forceful, confident, and authoritative than fancier fluff.[1] It's also easier to read, and you're less likely to make small blunders that will bother some readers. improves most writing significantly. [1] Incidentally, I think high school and university paper length requirements that reward such flabby writing without without sufficiently punishing weak style choices are part of why people write that way, especially when they're trying to write "formally".
• fpisfun 9y ago
  Haha so true, to me, and I'm sure a lot of others here, reading comes very naturally, it's by far the easiest way for me to consume information. I hate watching tutorial videos, for example because I'd much rather read tutorial and speed through it at my in pace. As I've started trying to be more entrepreneurial I've had to realize not everyone is like this and take this into account when dealing with others.
• yawz 9y ago
  "I made this one [letter] longer only because I have not had the leisure to make it shorter."[1] - Blaise Pascal The contemporary interpretation/translation of this quote is usually "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." [1] - "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte."
• anonacct37 9y ago
  Also keep in mind people are lazy. The higher up the chain you go the worse it seems to get. I recommend all e-mails to Director and above be written as if your audience is a hyperactive teenager. Go with simple statements (they don't understand nuance) and bullet points.