7 Rules for Communicating Clearly & Concisely in Emails
As email is the prevalent form of communication for many web workers, it's
gotten a lot of attention: how to handle your email, how to empty your inbox
, email etiquette , and more.
But perhaps not enough time is spent learning about how to communicate with
email. And more specifically, how to communicate clearly and concisely, two
crucial aspects of communication that are often overlooked.
How many times have you received a rambling and incoherent email? How many
times have you hit "Delete" because you have no idea what the person wants
and no time to sort through the long message?
The truth is that people don't have time for long emails, and they don't
have time to try to find out exactly what you want. You have to tell them,
in as short an email as possible.
Misunderstandings are also a problem, because of the nature of email. People
are often ambiguous, and their messages are interpreted differently than
they intended, leading to a waste of time and energy.
Communicate clearly and concisely with the following rules.
1. Use the minimum amount of sentences. I've been using the 5-sentence rule,
but you can use more if needed. The question is: how many sentences are
needed to communicate what you're trying to communicate? Or how few
sentences can you get away with. Cut it to that number, and no more. That
ensures that you're not wasting the time of the recipient, and that your
email actually gets read (people tend to put off reading longer ones, and
might even delete them).
2. State what you want right away. Don't write a long introduction, telling
your life story, or any story for that matter. People aren't interested.
They just want to know what you want. So state that, in the first sentence.
Skip the niceties Don't make the recipient wade through 10 paragraphs to
find what action is needed for the email.
3. Write about only one thing. There have been numerous times when I read an
email, saw the action needed, and went and did it ... only to find out that
three other things were also needed to respond to the email. I've also
responded to the first part of an email and not to others, just because I
didn't have enough time.
If you write about multiple things, with multiple requests, you do two
things: 1) make it likely that your email actually won't be read or acted
on; and 2) make it likely that even if it is acted on or responded to, the
recipient will only do one of those things.
Instead, stick to one subject, with one request. Once that's done, you can
send a second one, but don't overwhelm the recipient if at all possible.
4. Leave out the humor and emotions. These don't come across well in an
email. Even if you use emoticons. There's just no way to express tone,
inflection, etc. ... and there's no way to know if the recipient understands
that you're joking. If you're communicating in person, you can see that the
person didn't understand the humor, and say, "I was only joking!" But not in
email.
So, unless you know the person well, and you know they'll understand that
you're joking, leave out humor. It's a risk that you don't want to take.
5. Use "If ... then" statements. As email is a back-and-forth method of
communicating, and it can take a day or more for a response (in some cases),
you want to limit the number of times a message has to go back and forth. To
do that, use "if ... then" statements, anticipating the possible responses
to your question.
For example, if you want to know if a person has received a response to an
inquiry, instead of asking if they've received a response, and then waiting
for a reply, and then sending another email based on that reply, try doing
it all in one email:
"Have you received a response from Mr. X yet? If so, please finish the
report by Tuesday and email it to me. If not, can you follow up today and
let me know the response?"
By anticipating the possible responses, and giving a desired action for each
possible response, you're cutting a lot of wasted back-and-forth time.
6. Review for ambiguity, clarity. Once you've written an email, take a few
seconds to read over it before pressing the Send button. Read it as if you
were an outsider - how clear it it? Are there any ambiguous statements that
could be interpreted the wrong way? If so, clarify.
7. Revise for conciseness. As you review, also see if there is a way you can
shorten the email, remove words or sentences or even paragraphs. Leave
nothing but the essential message you're trying to communicate.
source:
webworkerdaily.com/2007/10/05/7-rules-for-communicating-clearly-and-c
oncisely-in-email/