| Hemingway Could Write Great E-mail
Messages If you are answering an e-mail
message, be sure to read, then reread the sender’s message several times
before answering it. Taking a moment to really "listen to" and understand what
the sender is saying , makes your response very clear. If you are initiating an e-mail, think
first.
Get to the main point quickly - then add details. Help your
reader absorb the information with a the least and effort. Use short sentences, each with
one idea.
Use concrete words that will relate to your reader's
experience. Assume that you are writing to a seventh-grader in school. Always opt for the
lesser syllable word instead of the multi-syllable one. E-mails are not for impressing
people with your vocabulary. Write simple.
The Bible is written this way. So is Hemingway.
Make sentences "come alive" by using active verbs.
For example, don't passively say "Give consideration to ..." when the action
verb "consider" is faster and shorter.
Use the reader's language, nomenclature, and trade
terms; not yours. Then, be consistent. Don't call the same thing by
possibly-misunderstood different names. Be specific. Don't say "...a wood
beam," when you mean "an 8" x 12" x 4" kiln-dried, white-oak
beam." On the other hand, don't unnecessarily elaborate.
When you finish writing the first draft of your
message, go back over it until it reads well aloud. Cross out words that don’t
add something—and, of, to, for, the, etc. Rearrange words and phrases to improve
meaning. Check facts for accuracy. Rewrite all ambiguous statements - words that could be
misinterpreted. Something that you inserted as a joke might be taken seriously and anger a
recipient. Watch for unintended innuendo. Replace such terms with words having only one
logical interpretation in the context used.
Check all adjectives, ensuring none "editorialize,"
or overstate a quality or feature. You might later have to prove something that you
said.
Be certain to re-read your e-mail and web site addresses
three times in order to ensure accuracy after you type them into any kind of text
document. Remember, unlike you, the web is built on precision. A comma instead of a dot or
slash will render an e-mail address or URL unreachable.
Never, ever use long paragraphs! Why short paragraphs?
Because when people read printed words in an extended, gray block of text, the section
always appears to be very hard to read. But if you break it up into short
paragraphs—even including the use of a double-space between
paragraphs—the viewer is far more likely to start to read what you say, and,
best of all, to read it all.
Use extreme care when selecting who will receive a copy (CC)
or blind copy (BCC) of an e-mail.
Why? Because when received from you, the recipient’s
e-mail message will display the e-mail addresses of those whom you designated to
receive CCs. But it will not display for the recipient the e-mail addresses of all
those whom you designated to receive BCCs. Only your copy of that e-mail will show who
they were.
Listing someone as a CC (displayed) when they should have
been listed as a BCC (hidden) can prove embarrassing to you or even legally actionable at
worst.
Is e-mail scary? A little, because years from now, messages
you send today can still be sitting in a recipient’s computer memory. And, these
long-forgotten e-mails can be used as evidence for or against you, as we’ve all
learned from many Washington litigations. So take e-mail seriously.
Most of all, take the time to "listen" to what the
sender is saying in e-mails to you before answering them. Then, write all your
business-related e-mails with simple, ten cent words in clear subject-verb object
sentences (Dick saw Jane).
Hemingway said about writing, "There is a fourth and
fifth dimension that can be gotten. It is a prose that has never been written, but it can
be written. With no tricks and no cheating. And nothing that can go bad afterwards."
I like Hemingway. He taught us that less is more.
© William Koelzer, 1999 |
