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I do not refute it. In the general case, you really should stick to three sentence total and possibly one question at the end. I provided a special (but annoy
by Deestan 17y ago
I do not refute it. In the general case, you really should stick to three sentence total and possibly one question at the end.
I provided a special (but annoyingly common) case where it is useful to diverge from the rule. The case is where there is a low probability that the reader will understand any given sentence.
Given that the reader has an estimated 60% chance to understand any given sentence, if you repeat the content in three different sentences, you get a 94% chance that at least one of them will be understood.
As an actual example, I give a shortened transcript from a recent discussion with PayPal support. My first 3 emails were all variations of:
I keep getting "The card cannot be used, try again
later" when trying to pay. This has been going on
for months. What should I do?
2-3 sentences and one question; they were completely unable to understand any of it (likely because the support people are paid by the number of tickets they reply to and just skim any incoming case). I estimated their reading comprehension hit rate to about 30%, which means I had to fire at least 7 explanations at them to get a >90% chance of success. This is my 4th email to them, which was rewarded with an actual helpful answer:
Hi. Thank you for the answer, but since you also
recommend "just try again at a later time" it seems
you are missing a vital point I'm trying to make:
I have been "trying again" for months.
I have been trying again weeks later several times.
This has been going on for months.
As you recommended, I tried repeating the process at
a later date, but this did not help.
[skip 5 more reformulations]
Please let me know typically how long this "security-
related" issue takes to pass through PayPal's bowels.
How much "later time" do I have to wait to try again?
[signature]
When trimming the fat, this email is identical to the first one which has 3 sentences, the last one of which is a question.