How to Write an Email

How to Write an Email(blog.dannycastonguay.com)

50 points by speckx 2 hours ago | 18 comments

All emails should be 2 lines only, is something I learned when I started working in an office. For example,

  WHAT YOU ARE SAYING

  WHAT YOU NEED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE (RESPONSE OR DECISION OR ACTION ETC)

My boss taught me this. Because people just don't read long emails. Simple as. Do YOU (want to or have time to) read someone else's long emails?

As time goes on, often I say (to myself) "forget that", and write all the detail that is needed anyway, even in email. But only for audiences that may care about the detail (or otherwise are safe to skip the email altogether).

But who uses email at work anymore, anyway, right? I guess some organizations.

nlawalker 39 minutes ago | |

I prefer adding the detail; if it's going to turn into a phone call anyway I might as well have a script ready to go.

stronglikedan 52 minutes ago | |

Most orgs still rely heavily on email, and most emails should be more than two lines to be useful. If it's only two lines, Slack it.

jaffa2 1 hour ago |

in his email he says :

Please reply by 3 pm today so we can confirm with the client.

in my experience when an action relies on somebody 'coming back' ESPECIALLY if it's a client. (do you want this, or that?)

It's best to tell them what you are going to do, unless they confirm otherwise.

e.g. We will proceed with removing feature Y to meet deadline of Mar 19, unless otherwise directed by 3pm today.

This avoids the limbo situtation where a team can't progress because they don't have clarity on X or Y.

Not always applicable but I find it works a lot of the time.

After sending emails to suppliers, they would often answer the first point in the text but ignore later points. This speaks to the send only 1 thing in an email, but if you have a few questions about something then put them in a numbered list.

I found response quality went way up when i did this, and often the responses were along the lines of :

1. do this 2. yes that's right 3. ok we note that

which i'm sure helps them becuaes the email is easier to read and parse in the first place and easier to write a reply to.

sdevonoes 25 minutes ago | |

Certainly I have never been in such a situation, but just for me to understand: if the sender has enough decision power to move forward with a default action without confirmation, then the email is simply a polite notice to someone above in the command chain, isn’t it?

Why the email then? Wouldn’t a record of the decision (not via email , but in some confluence-like space) be enough? If the confirmation is really needed then a default action wouldn’t be possible, ofc

zhengyi13 9 minutes ago | | |

You've probably got a certain level of trust or delegated authority, but you want input and you're giving your leadership the opportunity to steer the decision if they feel they need to, and you're balancing that against the urgency of action.

By very direct analogy, I think there's a dictum in the US military to the effect that a bad plan executed quickly can be better than a perfect plan that's executed too late.

ETA: ... and you're potentially speeding the decision/action by giving leadership the opportunity to confirm/redirect on receipt of the email.

Insimwytim 8 minutes ago |

As I was reading, I mostly thought "well, it might make sense sometimes; well, it's an opinion"

And then I reached:

> 10. AI is fine. Generic language is not.

> It is fine to use AI to draft or review an email.

> But edit it until it sounds specific and human.

Ok, maybe we shouldn't take advice from someone, who authoritatively states it is fine to put slop in the email?

alentred 1 hour ago |

Preach. I would love to see all email like this. I learnt this in my very first work place and will never get the trend of starting every email with "I hope you are doing well".

I live and work in France, and oh boy... It's just cultural. Every email is like a letter to the King. "Would you be so kind enough to consider my humble request that is described hereafter in next three paragraphs". Funny thing: I welcome AI summaries on those.

My other pet peeve: meeting invitations. Half of the meetings in my calendar are called "Point" in French (loosely translated as "Topic"), the other half has no descriptions but the headlines. I tried the "I am not going unless I know why I am invited" thing to no avail - you cannot win this against the entire org.

So, you guess from the list of invitees. Or ask the organizer at lunch. Then go with them to the meeting to discuss the Topic for 15 minutes. Which could have been easily discussed at lunch, but lunch time is reserved to discuss food, not work.

Oh well. I love our cuisine, though. And the culture, and people, everything really. Just not how we write email.

apparent 28 minutes ago |

I find that making the very last sentence a question makes it much more likely that I'll get a response than if the question is anywhere else in the email. The person needs to finish reading the email with the question, which prompts them to hit reply and answer it.

The immediate-response-rate goes down even more if the input being sought is not framed as a question ("I've been trying to figure out how to handle this situation" versus "Which do you think is the better route?").

Of course, some people will still respond regardless, but I've found that in both personal and business emails, keeping an email short and finishing with a question mark is the best way to ensure a rapid response.

robinsonb5 24 minutes ago | |

Also, strictly one question per email - otherwise only the first will be answered and any others ignored!

apparent 5 minutes ago | | |

Yeah, if there are multiple items to address, I tend to use bulleted lists and then end the email with "What do you think?"

Insimwytim 6 minutes ago | | |

There should be some process that punishes those, who does that.

EvanAnderson 1 hour ago |

I feel like incorporating the BLUF[0] strategy has helped my emails be more effective.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

al_borland 2 hours ago |

For all the stress about making emails short and to the point, this subject example is entirely too long. No one is reading all this.

> Good: Action needed today: approve revised offer Decision needed: pricing for Client X Update: contract signed with Acme Risk: launch delayed by one week

Some of these are good, but a lot of it depends on company culture. It sounds like he's barking orders at people, which may be received poorly. Some of it borders on sounding like Kevin in The Office when he tried to eliminate words from his speech to save time.

gumby 1 hour ago |

Best if the subject line is the conclusion and the message supports that.

Subject: feature X dropped from v4.4

Body: we all know this feature is delayed and will cause the release to slip. Marketing gave us the OK to defer it to 4.5

xlii 1 hour ago |

Dear Aunt Bee, Thank you for the sweater.

https://tinyurl.com/z9m89k2z

Insimwytim 15 minutes ago | |

No reason to post shortened URL instead of this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/4dmufm/how_tech_writ...

al_borland 20 minutes ago | |

I took technical writing my freshman year of college. The teacher said I was a natural. I then transferred to the business college and they beat that right out of me.

dijksterhuis 1 hour ago |

i learned the SCRAP mnemonic a long while ago: Situation; Complication; Resolution; Actions; Politeness.

works when the recipient is attuned to it. when the recipient is attuned to flowery/over-polite language i've found they can get upset/assume you're being rude/dismissive.

bibimsz 2 hours ago |

decent guidelines, esp for someone new to office work. my advice: nobody wants to read your email, so if you must send one keep it extremely short: between 0 to 3 sentences.