If your job involves sending and receiving e-mail with co-workers and customers, chances are good that you’ve received (or sent) some confusing or completely unintelligible messages. Unfortunately, a person’s ability to carry on a conversation isn’t always a good indication of their ability to communicate in writing. Loquacious and garrulous people may send e-mails with misspellings, omitted words, and poor punctuation; and the more reserved and shy ones may write with clarity and precision. Most of us are probably somewhere in between.

(More after the jump)

Let’s begin with an example. Here’s an e-mail I received from a co-worker (names and other incriminating items have been changed to protect the innocent):

Howdy all,

We are reactivating timesheet usage from the company intranet today. This means that project managers will not be able to directly update actual hours on projects. They have updated project dates and actual hours. If you experience incorrect assignments, etc. please contact the project manager to correct them.

Please continue the current manual timesheets until told otherwise.

I am including a simple flow diagram on the front page of the instructions for filling out timesheets to provide a high-level view. The instructions are similar to the process you are already using with the exception that you will be able to update your time in Outlook.

Starting Monday please start completing the new timesheets or use Outlook if you prefer. If you have any questions please contact me.

Thank you,

Tom

After reading through this message once, do you know what Tom is trying to communicate? Probably not.

He’s written an e-mail with all of the information that he needs to share with his co-workers, but he’s organized and described that information so poorly that most recipients will need to re-read the message a few times and ask follow-up questions to make sure they understand Tom correctly.

If Tom had taken a little extra time to make sure his message was clear, he could have saved his co-workers’ time and the company’s money (paying for those dozens of co-workers to spend time reading, re-reading, and following up).

Let’s examine each paragraph and figure out what Tom is trying to say.

>>We are reactivating timesheet usage from the company intranet today.

HC: Ok, a little clunky, but it’s clear that the timesheet tool on the intranet is now active.

>>This means that project managers will not be able to directly update actual hours on projects.

HC: It starts to unravel here. I’m not a PM, so I don’t think this applies to me. But I’m curious: will PMs be able to update “actual hours” indirectly? What other types of hours are there besides “actual?”

>>They have updated project dates and actual hours.

HC: So, the PMs possess updated dates and hours? Or, at some point in the past, have they updated dates and hours?

>>If you experience incorrect assignments, etc. please contact the project manager to correct them.

HC: What else might be incorrect besides assignments? And I thought the previous sentences said that PMs would be unable to update project information; so if I contact a PM to correct something, will they be able to correct it?

>>Please continue the current manual timesheets until told otherwise.

HC: The formatting tells me that Tom thinks this piece of information is very important. If I’m supposed to keep doing things the old way, even though the other way has been recently activated, what’s the purpose of this e-mail? Should I be using both methods? If this is so crucial, why is it in the middle of the e-mail?

>>I am including a simple flow diagram on the front page of the instructions for filling out timesheets to provide a high-level view.

HC: [this e-mail had a document attached to it] Ok, maybe that will help clear up any confusion [it didn't].

>>The instructions are similar to the process you are already using with the exception that you will be able to update your time in Outlook.

HC: How can it be similar to the current method if there’s a way to do it that’s completely different? I’ve been logging and submitting my work hours using a spreadsheet, I doubt that either the intranet site or the Outlook method are terribly similar to what I’m already familiar with.

>>Starting Monday please start completing the new timesheets or use Outlook if you prefer. If you have any questions please contact me.

HC: Now I’m really confused. You told me to use the manual method until told otherwise. Are you now telling me otherwise? And because of the way this is worded, I’m not certain that the Outlook method is the same as the new intranet method. Oh yes, I’ll be contacting you, Tom, and so will the rest of the office.

As you might imagine, this message created a lot of confusion about what Tom wanted people to do, and a fair number of Tom’s co-workers were frustrated with him. After dozens of follow-up e-mails and conversations, Tom’s co-workers finally understood what he was trying to communicate.

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Now, using the information from Tom’s message, here’s an outline for creating an effective e-mail.

First, determine the goal of the e-mail. In this example, Tom wants people to start reporting their work hours using a new intranet-based timesheet.

Second, identify the key points that need to be communicated. Tom wants all recipients of his e-mail to know that:

  • Starting next Monday, everyone should fill in and submit their weekly timesheets using the intranet site.
  • People should continue to fill in and submit their weekly timesheets in spreadsheet format until we’re sure all the bugs are worked out in the new system.
  • If people see any discrepancies in their project assignments, they should make a note of them and report them to the corresponding project manager.

Notice that the information about what the project managers can or cannot do does not appear in the list. That information is specific to a subset of recipients (the PMs), and not everybody needs to know about it or is affected by it, which takes us to…

Third, determine what information supports the key points or applies only to a certain individual or group within the list of recipients. In this category, Tom has:

  • Limitations of what project managers can do with the new intranet-based timesheets.
  • A note that people can use a special application within Outlook to fill in and submit their timesheets without visiting the intranet site.
  • A note that he has attached a document containing instructions to the e-mail.

After determining the goal of the e-mail and the hierarchy of information to share, we can begin composing the message.

Start with a brief and descriptive subject line. Let’s use: Changes to timesheet policy

Begin with a sentence that explains the goal of the e-mail:

Howdy all,

We have a new timesheet system on our intranet that everyone will need to start using.

Next, provide the key pieces of information that relate to the goal of the e-mail:

Starting next Monday, everyone should fill in and submit their weekly timesheets using the intranet site. You should continue to fill in and submit your timesheets in spreadsheet format until we’re sure all the bugs are worked out in the new system.

If you see any discrepancies in your project assignments, make a note of them and report them to the corresponding project manager.

Here we have all four key points stated simply. Applying a bold font face to the item about continuing to submit the spreadsheet versions of the timesheets helps to emphasize its importance.

Note: applying a bold face to several sentences or whole paragraphs will undermine the intended emphasis. If you’re trying to communicate five or six brief points to your recipients, try using a bulleted list instead of altering the boldness of several lines of text.

After communicating the key points that relevant to everyone, we can bring in the secondary information:

The document attached to this e-mail contains instructions for filling in and submitting the new intranet-based timesheets. In the document you’ll also find information about an application within Outlook that you can use to complete the new timesheets without needing to visit the intranet site.

Project managers: please note that you will not be able to update the estimated work hours shown in people’s timesheets on an as-needed basis. You will only be able to update those estimates on a weekly basis.

The first chunk of secondary information helps everyone understand the primary points mentioned in the previous section. And, again, using a minimal amount of emphasis we flag information that is important to one group, but not necessary for everyone who received the message.

So, putting it all together, here’s the final re-write:

Howdy all,

We have a new timesheet system on our intranet that everyone will need to start using.

Starting next Monday, everyone should fill in and submit their weekly timesheets using the intranet site. You should continue to fill in and submit your timesheets in spreadsheet format until we’re sure all the bugs are worked out in the new system.

If you see any discrepancies in your project assignments, make a note of them and report them to the corresponding project manager.

The document attached to this e-mail contains instructions for filling in and submitting the new intranet-based timesheets. In the document you’ll also find information about an application within Outlook that you can use to complete the new timesheets without needing to visit the intranet site.

Project managers: please note that you will not be able to update the estimated work hours shown in people’s timesheets on an as-needed basis. You will only be able to update those estimates on a weekly basis.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Thanks,

Tom

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To sum up, when writing an e-mail follow some simple steps:

  • Before you start writing, determine the goal of your message. What do you want the recipients to do or understand?
  • Identify the primary information that your recipients will need to have in order for your message to help you achieve your goal.
  • Identify any supplementary information that supports the primary information

And keep these principles in mind:

  • Use paragraph breaks strategically to group related information together.
  • Use emphasis on text sparingly; overdoing it minimizes the effect of the emphasis.
  • Bulleted lists (like this one) are easier for readers to scan than several short items listed within a sentence.
  • Use spellcheck. It takes 30 seconds, and if your spelling is flawless, you’ll look smarter.

Doing this might take you an extra five or ten minutes, but if it means saving several of your co-workers ten minutes or more trying to understand what you’re trying to say and then writing e-mails of their own in response, you’re saving everybody’s time—including the time you’d be spending clarifying yourself to your co-workers.