Writing emails that are too long

[DuckRabbit]

Does anyone else encounter conflict or non-response from the world because of writing overly long emails?

Could this be due to ASC hardwiring which predisposes ASC individuals to seeing many inter-related issues, noticing many details and deeming them relevant? Also just finding so many things new and fascinating to communicate about, which perhaps the recipients find extraneous, unimportant, irrelevant or old-hat?

Or could this just be an affliction of ASC individuals who enjoy writing? I know many on this forum enjoy creative writing so could it just be that - a naturally literary type trying to email people who aren't so interested in expressing things in words?

A third interpretation could be that ASC individuals feel connected to others due to common humanity, so they don't have the proper reserves to treat others as strangers, which means that end up emailing them in an over-familiar way, which other people view as odd or inappropriate. The ASC individual has failed to factor in how much (actually how little) other people are willing to invest in reading and responding to an email of a mere acquaintance or stranger?

Does anyone have any strategies for resisting or avoiding overly long emails? Or are the emails correct but the world at fault for having such a short attention-span?

Any reflections you have on the finding of 'disproportionate and unbalanced correspondence' would be welcome. FYI: "ASC" = Autistic Spectrum Conditions.

 

[kriss72]

I sometimes have to be very careful to not write too much in e-mails (talking about none-private communication here, i.e. if I write to people I know in a private context I just babble along), I tend to over explain to be sure I'm not misunderstood, but if I'm not careful it doesn't come out that way to the reader, so I sometimes need to spend way to much time on writing short.

 

[marc_101]

Work context: I find long emails difficult mostly because I receive too many work emails, so my attention span is very limited. I skim the long messages trying to understand which is the part I need to attend to. I currently have a problem with a person who sends me very long emails about every single problem with a topic and their decision-making process and I just can't understand what I'm supposed to do. I have asked them repeatedly to send me short emails with the important part, but I think they can't decide which part is important. I'm very frustrated and may stop working with this person.

Personal: I like long emails. I like to get to know people. Sadly, people barely do this now. Long emails have been replaced with short texts.

So I guess that context is key and the relationship you have the other people.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Personally, the main reasons for not texting or being able to enjoy the social media experience is trying to communicate through short sentences and phrases. A single sentence rarely, if ever, has the clarity. For one, most people rarely are precise with their context and perspective, often leaving things wide-open for interpretation and more questions. Two, they often have a cognitive bias, often leaving things wide-open for conflict. Three, if we are communicating in short sentences then its a bunch of tedious back-and-forth, which then can open up the discussion for tangents and getting off topic without ever resolving the first comment or question, which drives me insane and pisses me off.

Even during normal verbal conversation, these things upset my brain. The other thing that upsets me the most is interruptions in my flow of thought (a phone call, someone walking up and butting in, etc.). That's been pretty much my entire time at work, multiple, multiple, non-stop interruptions, I rarely can complete a thought let alone a conversation or e-mail.

I have this need for clarity, to get down to the "nitty gritty" details, and that often means eliminating ambiguity by explaining things thoroughly. The only thing that I have been able to do to keep things shorter is to itemize my points (#1, #2, #3, ...).

A contributing factor in my life is the autistic neurodivergence whether it be how my mind expresses itself or how I internalize things. I am often misunderstood in day-to-day social interactions, in part, because I need that time to explain things thoroughly, and between the interruptions and the other person's lack of patience with me, I rarely get that opportunity. Then, later, it became clear that the person I was communicating with, and myself, were not on the same "wavelength" and I was misinterpreted. "Well, you said,..." and I will have to rebut and explain with further detail and it then becomes an unwanted conflict. It's a serious "pet peeve" of mine that for 50+ years, I've never been able to overcome despite my best efforts.

 

[DuckRabbit]

Personally, the main reasons for not texting or being able to enjoy the social media experience is trying to communicate through short sentences and phrases. A single sentence rarely, if ever, has the clarity. For one, most people rarely are precise with their context and perspective, often leaving things wide-open for interpretation and more questions. Two, they often have a cognitive bias, often leaving things wide-open for conflict. Three, if we are communicating in short sentences then its a bunch of tedious back-and-forth, which then can open up the discussion for tangents and getting off topic without ever resolving the first comment or question, which drives me insane and pisses me off.

Even during normal verbal conversation, these things upset my brain. The other thing that upsets me the most is interruptions in my flow of thought (a phone call, someone walking up and butting in, etc.). That's been pretty much my entire time at work, multiple, multiple, non-stop interruptions, I rarely can complete a thought let alone a conversation or e-mail.

I have this need for clarity, to get down to the "nitty gritty" details, and that often means eliminating ambiguity by explaining things thoroughly. The only thing that I have been able to do to keep things shorter is to itemize my points (#1, #2, #3, ...).

A contributing factor in my life is the autistic neurodivergence whether it be how my mind expresses itself or how I internalize things. I am often misunderstood in day-to-day social interactions, in part, because I need that time to explain things thoroughly, and between the interruptions and the other person's lack of patience with me, I rarely get that opportunity. Then, later, it became clear that the person I was communicating with, and myself, were not on the same "wavelength" and I was misinterpreted. "Well, you said,..." and I will have to rebut and explain with further detail and it then becomes an unwanted conflict. It's a serious "pet peeve" of mine that for 50+ years, I've never been able to overcome despite my best efforts.

Resonate with your drive for clarity. The world does not readily accommodate Valid, Accurate and Complete. It prefers vague gesturing, partial, and flitting; god forbid any thought sustained.

 

[Mary Terry]

Use a thesaurus to find the best or most concise word for what you're trying to express.

Identify a few main points you want to make and stick to them. Avoid the temptation to ramble or over-explain things.

Write emails as drafts. Revisit them the next day to see if you can delete unnecessary verbiage or condense what you're trying to say. Send them only after you have "cleaned them up" to eliminate verbosity.

Brevity usually is essential in the workplace.

 

[DuckRabbit]

Brevity usually is essential in the workplace.

So is quick turn-around, speed. Writing brief emails sometimes conflicts with that - ironically.

 

[tree]

3 Ways to Make Your Writing Clearer

Next time you finish a document with a few minutes to spare, don’t squander your time editing with minor sentence-level revisions. Try these three strategies instead.

getpocket.com

I found this brief article to be useful.

Avoiding the "since the dawn of time" approach and just coming to the point,
for example....

 

[Dagan]

My bosses constantly tell me to quit writing novels and instead give the Cliff's notes. Oops. I just don't want to be mistaken, and per my day job, the details matter. I mean, "precision" is in the actual job title itself. It's a struggle.

 

[tree]

Outline of the article I linked:

1. Cut the “since the dawn of time” opening and get right to the point.
2. Turn those descriptive topic sentences into topic sentences that make claims.
3. Make sure people are doing things in your sentences, unless you don’t want them to be doing things.

Spoiler: full article

Writing is hard, and writing under deadline pressure is even harder. If you’re like many of the writers I work with, you may be squandering precious minutes before your deadline making relatively minor sentence-level edits — changing a word here, cutting a word there (and then putting it back). You should certainly spell-check and proofread every document before you click submit. But if your message isn’t as clear as it needs to be, changing the word “purchase” to “buy” is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: it won’t save you.

When you’re pressed for time — which, let’s face it, is most of the time — you’ll get the best results if you prioritize edits that will sharpen your message. Instead of spending those last five minutes obsessing over a single sentence, try focusing on the big picture with these three strategies:

1. Cut the “since the dawn of time” opening and get right to the point.

Consider this opening paragraph to a budget memo:

Budgets are generally complicated and difficult to create because of the number of stakeholders that must be satisfied in a variety of situations. We do not have infinite resources, nor can we please everyone all the time. We must think strategically. When we consider the pros and cons of increasing spending on digital marketing, things get even more complicated. Since the data does not support increasing digital marketing, after careful review, I have concluded that we should focus on growing our sales team.

Everything in this paragraph before “since the data” is a “since the dawn of time” opening because it might as well say “Since the dawn of time people have been having thoughts about budgets. Here is a general and not very illuminating overview of those thoughts. When I have sufficiently bored you, I will share my specific thoughts about this topic with you.” While writing “since the dawn of time” sentences may help you get to your main point while drafting a document, those sentences actually end up obscuring your point. Here, the point comes in the last sentence:

After careful review, I have concluded that we should grow our sales team.

In most cases, your readers don’t need to hear every thought anyone has ever had about your topic. They need to know what they should think about the topic right now. When you lead with your main point, you focus your reader’s attention where it belongs. Keep only the background information that’s important to your message, and cut the rest.

2. Turn those descriptive topic sentences into topic sentences that make claims.

The first or “topic” sentence of a paragraph tells readers what to expect in the rest of the paragraph. Consider the difference between these two topic sentences:

Descriptive topic sentence: I met with the client on Thursday.

Claim topic sentence: After meeting with the client on Thursday, I recommend rethinking our pitch.

While the descriptive version offers potentially useful information (a meeting occurred, it happened on Thursday), readers won’t know yet why these facts matter. On the other hand, the claim version of the sentence immediately focuses a reader’s attention: the meeting on Thursday matters because something that occurred in that meeting caused you to change your mind about the pitch. Now I know what I’m getting in that paragraph: I’m going to find out what we should do about the pitch and why. And you know what you have to deliver.

But what if you actually just want to describe something — a meeting, a conversation, a product? Even in those cases, your topic sentence should tell your readers where to focus their attention. Consider these two sentences that could begin a paragraph describing a client meeting:

Descriptive topic sentence: I met with the client at his office in Boston.

Claim topic sentence: My meeting with the client focused primarily on plans for future growth.

Both sentences prepare readers for a discussion of the client meeting. But after reading the descriptive version, readers only know that the meeting occurred in Boston. In contrast, the claim version clearly establishes that the meeting yielded plans for future growth. When you begin a paragraph with a claim, you teach readers what to expect — and you remind yourself what the rest of the paragraph should deliver. If you make a habit of writing claim-based topic sentences, you’ll have less editing to do in the future.

3. Make sure people are doing things in your sentences, unless you don’t want them to be doing things.

Consider the difference between these two sentences:

All managers should approve and submit expense reports by Friday at noon.

Expense reports should be approved and submitted by Friday at noon.

In the first sentence, we know who should do what: Managers should do the approving and submitting. In the second sentence, we know that two actions must occur, but we’re not clear on who should do what. Should the managers approve the reports but leave the submitting to team members? Or are the managers responsible for both steps? Does everyone on the team already know who is responsible for approving expense reports?

You may have learned somewhere along the line that you should always use active verbs — and you could certainly solve any confusion about the chain of command for expense reports by employing active voice. But I’m not suggesting that you adopt the “active verb” rule. In fact, you should only make people do things in your sentences when you want them to be doing things. Consider the difference between these two sentences:

The CEO decided to close the branch locations.

The decision was made to close the branch locations.

In the first sentence, we know exactly what’s going on. The CEO made a decision, and that decision was to close the branch locations. In the second sentence, we know the what: the branch locations are going to close. But we don’t know the who: Who made this decision? Before you rush to rewrite that second sentence, you should stop and consider your purpose in writing the sentence. It might be that the closings are the important news, and that you actually don’t want to draw attention to the fact that the CEO made this decision. In that case, you’d go with the second version. On the other hand, if you are writing about a series of decisions made by your bold new CEO, you might choose to go with that first version.

Next time you finish a document with a few minutes to spare, try these three strategies first. If you get in the habit of using them, you should find you won’t need to do as much last-minute editing in the future.

Jane Rosenzweig is the Director of the Harvard Writing Center and the author of the newsletter Writing Hacks. Follow her on Twitter @RosenzweigJane.

 

[marc_101]

My bosses constantly tell me to quit writing novels and instead give the Cliff's notes. Oops. I just don't want to be mistaken, and per my day job, the details matter. I mean, "precision" is in the actual job title itself. It's a struggle.

I tell the person who writes long emails that I need a 300 word abstract, that's it.

I understand, though. Making things simpler is very difficult.

As Einstein supposedly said: "Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler"

 

[Nervous Rex]

Long emails has been a problem for me. My main problem is that I'm an engineer and I want to put all the technical details into an email. I always used to think that everyone else wanted all the details that I had, so they could think through it the same way I did.

That's not what people want. Most people want to know the main point first, and then maybe details later.

At one point, we had a very busy and very impatient person as our VP of Engineering. As hard as he was to deal with, his impatience helped me a lot. I would start to describe a technical problem in detail and he would interrupt me after 5 seconds and tell me to get to the point. If I wrote a long email, he would call me into his office to give him a shorter summary.

So, I learned to put my main point (my "executive summary") at the top of the email and then put the details afterward "We need to use solution X. Here's why..." That change has helped a lot and I use that format for all emails to management. I suspect that they just read the first line - the main point - and then trust me on the details.

 

[Judge]

Good topic!

Answer: No, not any more. In this respect and in so many others, my closest relatives seem to be the ones with the most contempt towards any and all of my autistic traits and behaviors. Including being overly verbose in writing, involving many paragraphs.

But even then they still misunderstand me at times...still and always will be frustrating.

As for work, I always kept business communications brief and to the point. One of those basics I was taught as an underwriter trainee/rater when I was hired to work in an insurance company. Also reminded me of an underwriting manager who always emphasized "kiss-kick-kiss". To be cordial in your written opening, and then deliver the bad news, but to do so as briefly as possible. Followed up by a friendly good-bye.

 

[Tom]

I do feel like I have to conciously work at being clear in communication, with NTs in particular. I have thought it connected to autism in some way.

But overly long writing puts me off too. It feels like sitting at some paperwork desk job and the boss dropping a huge load of new work on the desk.

If its an option, I usually end up just skipping it. Or I will just read a just a few lines and write an answer based on my psychic ability to predict what the rest says.

 

[Judge]

But overly long writing puts me off too. It feels like sitting at some paperwork desk job and the boss dropping a huge load of new work on the desk.

Point taken, especially given that I used to teach time management to new employees having difficulties with their work load. Excessive and lengthy communications add up- and not in a good way at the expense of more important priorities.

 

[Mary Terry]

Good topic!

Answer: No, not any more. In this respect and in so many others, my closest relatives seem to be the ones with the most contempt towards any and all of my autistic traits and behaviors. Including being overly verbose in writing, involving many paragraphs.

But even then they still misunderstand me at times...still and always will be frustrating.

As for work, I always kept business communications brief and to the point. One of those basics I was taught as an underwriter trainee/rater when I was hired to work in an insurance company. Also reminded me of an underwriting manager who always emphasized "kiss-kick-kiss". To be cordial in your written opening, and then deliver the bad news, but to do so as briefly as possible. Followed up by a friendly good-bye.

One of the best things I learned when I was a baby lawyer was the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid. Judges are expected to read everything filed in a court case. They are busy, not enough hours in the day to read everything. So, the more concise and simple you make it, the more likely the judge is to actually read what you wrote. If the judge wants more detail, he/she will tell you.

 

[Judge]

Judges are expected to read everything filed in a court case. They are busy, not enough hours in the day to read everything. So, the more concise and simple you make it, the more likely the judge is to actually read what you wrote. If the judge wants more detail, he/she will tell you.

Yes, something tells me that it's very foolish to antagonize much of anyone on the bench. Even when it involves a well-meaning, but overly long communication of any kind. "What goes around, comes around".

 

[Mary Terry]

Yes, something tells me that it's very foolish to antagonize much of anyone on the bench. Even when it involves a well-meaning, but overly long communication of any kind.

Yes, you don't want to anger or antagonize the judge. There are some living examples of that in recent news.

 

[Dagan]

Another thing that would help me write shorter emails at work (not have to detail so much to not be mistaken) is if the folks asking me anything knew what was going on or what they were doing in the first place. Way more often than not, these people are ignorant to much of the entire process of what's going on. They decidedly don't even know what they don't know.

Worst of all, though, is that these people would know what to do IF THEY WOULD JUST READ or even make an effort to look into any of the manuals listed on everyone's computer. So...clearly knowing that the bulk of their problem is reading and/or reading comprehension, the overall irony hits me that they likely won't understand much of what I write unless I make it pre school clear to them - hence a revised manual of an email or few sent to them.

 

[kriss72]

I worked in a place where some e-mails, like a status were started by a short (a few lines) "executive summary" and then the full explanation that could be much longer.