Using Writing Smells to Refactor Your Email

Using Writing Smells to Refactor Your Email(robots.thoughtbot.com)

7 points by adarshpandit 13 years ago | 3 comments

happimess 13 years ago |

There are some good ideas here, but putting each sentence into its own paragraph makes for choppy prose. Split them out and consider each one on its own, but once each sentence is as tight as it's going to get, why not combine related ones into paragraphs?

The example email is, to my eye, three paragraphs:

  “Hey Ralph,

  I’m glad to meet another fellow Quebecois and lover of
  poutine last night at the meetup. If you’re in town next
  week, let’s meet up. I suggest Cafe Madeline for coffee
  on Tuesday at 3pm.

  I’m interested to learn more about example.com and tell
  you more about thoughtbot. If you haven’t already done
  so, take a look at thoughtbot.com to see some of our
  recent projects. Also, take a look at our playbook
  (playbook.thoughtbot.com) for more detail on our
  approach to building startups.

  Looking forward to hearing from you.

  -Rolf”

adarshpandit 13 years ago | |

A fair point. For me, I find it's easier to read short, punchy sentences when they are on separate lines.

I also find (for myself) that all lines get read when formatted this way, as opposed to scanning through a paragraph getting some of it.

Thanks for the feedback!

kennu 13 years ago |

I still try to live by this rule, and keep it in my signature:

http://three.sentenc.es/

Sometimes it's three paragraphs instead of three sentences, but I think that tends to work nearly as well.