
Composing better emails - laz_arus
https://iridakos.com/how-to/2019/06/26/composing-better-emails.html
======
jakubp
If you want to compose better emails, forget formatting.

\- practice making emails short. Write, then rewrite to 50% of original
length, then try to make it even shorter.

\- make the request a separate paragraph (request = what you want the other
person to do)

\- if your email is an attempt to persuade someone, don't bother. Go talk to
them. Email will cause you problems in your career if you keep that up. It's
unsuitable as a means of discussion (same as Slack and any other written
medium). The only reason to do that is if you can't get the other party on the
phone/in person (which is almost never the case).

~~~
jasode
_> if your email is an attempt to persuade someone, don't bother. Go talk to
them._

This really depends on the person being persuaded and the type of topic.

For me (and I know many that agree), it's better to put a _complex_ topic into
an email than to walk up to people. Organize your thoughts, use bullet points,
prioritize the most important things, add web links or other evidence to
support your ideas.

The problem is that when you just walk up to my desk or call me on the phone
to talk about something complex, _you 're now forcing me to become your
secretary_ and transcribe your notes. I'm now "writing out your email" that I
would prefer you write yourself. That's not being respectful of my time. I can
_read at ~250 wpm_ ; you can only talk at ~100 wpm.

Yes, if it's something lightweight like you're trying to convince me to go to
the Chinese restaurant instead of Italian for lunch, go ahead and talk to me
instead of write up an email. Otherwise, please consider if the recipient of
your complex topic wants to be your "secretary".

I would be very curious of a survey that asked if people preferred to be
convinced by coworkers talking to them instead of writing emails/reports with
organized and coherent data. Would it be a minority or majority of
respondents?

~~~
jakubp
I don't mean for this to be blunt, but since we're talking about work, if I
want to persuade you of something, it's your job to listen to me, because my
persuasion will be aimed at accomplishing company goals! So we are both on the
clock here, not just you.

I can also assure you I speak faster than I type, and so it's not just your
end that counts.

I'm also pretty sure I can say much fewer words with proper tone of voice to
convey as much as 5x long email correctly, and a single word of your response
and a look at your face as I speak will tell me more of what I should
understand of your reaction than even the most elaborate written response...

Persuasion and discussion isn't about me laying out my point clearly in a tidy
format though, right? It's about mind-sharing, interaction, sensitivity, etc.

Maybe we come from very different types of organizations? I have never, ever
(!) in my 15+ year career been in a position where too many unprepared people
forced me in any way to listen to their stupid / ill-prepared ideas....

[Edit] I'm also confused, how does someone coming up to talk to you forces you
to write anything down?? (seriously I don't get that part :) )

~~~
daveslash
_> if I want to persuade you of something, it's your job to listen to me_

If you're trying to persuade someone of something, you're the salesman in that
situation. Keep that in mind.

 _> I can also assure you I speak faster than I type, and so it's not just
your end that counts._

That wasn't the point; jasode was asserting that many people read other
peoples' writing faster than others speak, not that other people can type
faster than they can speak.

~~~
jakubp
I get it. But we have to weigh both sides of the cost, and if you want me to
type something up, it's not just that you gain by it because you read fast - I
lose something because I type slow! And org pays for both our times.

------
tumetab1
I would also add "promote the most important message to the first
sentence/paragraph". Rewriting the first example:

    
    
      Hello all,
      
      Please check and revise the priority of Redmine issue (#455) that I have created.
      
      I noticed that there are many logs for blabla the last few days and I don't think that it is normal. 
      I believe the problem is the updated version of gem blabla.
      
      Feel free to change its priority in case blabla.
      
      Thanks,
      Lazarus

~~~
abdullahkhalids
The first sentence in most cases should be what you require the receipient to
do. The rest of the email can then be why you want them to do it. This has the
beneficial effect that the receipient can immediately tell from the first line
how important the email is, how time sensitive it is, and how much time and
other resources they have to commit to resolve/reply to the email. Examples:

* Check issue (from the above example)

* Giving you a routine update (no action required from receipient besides reading the email)

* Set a meeting (receipient needs to determine when they are free to discuss the why of the email)

* Give me permission to do X

------
lifeisstillgood
Sometimes we use obfuscation for social reasons

\- because we don't want to offend some direct recipients

"We see a future using efficient automation techniques to improve shareholder
value"

or

"we are firing the expensive useless third of staff"

\- because we don't know the current opinion of people on the list

"We should investigate the options"

vs

"We are all agreed we should use the new design so let's do that"

\- we are not sure who the decision maker actually is, or if this is even a
problem

All of the above may come off as lack of confidence / inability to write
clearly but generally it is awareness of difficult social situations that if
not handled well would derail the ultimate outcome - in short just because
people are not writing "hard charging go getting emails" does not mean they
are ineffective - perhaps they are more effective than the bull in a china
shop

~~~
splittingTimes
Being aware of the power structure/corporate politics going on at your
workplace is really important if you want to advance.

Also when you work across cultures you need to adjust your tone/approach. As a
German working with French coworkers, it took me a while to figure this out.

~~~
konradb
> As a German working with French coworkers, it took me a while to figure this
> out.

What examples come up the most, or had the most impact on you figuring it out?

~~~
aphroz
i.e.: You have to put people in "To" and "Cc" by order of importance in the
company and respect the hierarchy.

~~~
RHSeeger
I thought this was crazy and egotistical, and how could anyone even want such
a thing... until I googled the topic. From what I'm reading, it's not that
rare ([https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97395/in-
what-...](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97395/in-what-order-
should-i-list-coworkers-in-emails)).

In my mind, order serves no purpose, so requiring it is purely egotistical.
That being said, overly egotistical people aren't exactly a rarity in the
business world. And the minute _one_ person says it matters, other people
start thinking it does too (because someone else might see it that way, and it
reflects on them).

------
dijksterhuis
For the “structure long messages” bit, i was taught to use the SCRAP mnemonic:

Situation: x has broken

Complication: dev is on lunch

Resolution: wait for dev to return from lunch and request investigation and
thoughts on fix

Actions:

@dev finish lunch;

@teamlead inform @dev when returned from lunch;

@dev investigate problem and report to @teamlead;

@teamlead update @me on progress;

@me inform clients on issue

@me setup meeting to discuss potential fixes with @teamlead & @dev.

Politeness: have a good lunch everyone

~~~
mxuribe
I've used an almost identical method, but never knew this had a name, or such
a neat mnemonic!

------
mxcrossb
Those are some nice tips, but I have to question the use of bold font, it
seems to come off as too aggressive.

~~~
Sverigevader
I agree and I've been using italic instead of bold font for this reason. It's
like you're whispering something which makes people listen more intently and
hopefully read more intently.

~~~
mirekrusin
It's very strange to me that some people actually don't like bold text to
emphasize relevant parts.

It's the easiest way to aid speed reading/allowing mental prose-to-bullet
point conversion.

For me it's a sign of respect for time of the reader who is likely overwhelmed
with information and wants to focus on the most important parts.

I've written some technical documents this way. In one company I got explicit
email that this helped a lot and was great idea. Implementation that followed
went smoothly.

In other company it has been seen as silly, all emphasis was removed, bullet
points expanded to prose, useless brochure like logos/typography added - of
course I'm biased but this document stands in my head as the shittiest/least
useful/confusing/verbose documents I had to deal with.

I think to really appreciate this approach you'd have to test it yourself on
50 page document and discover how fast you can digest 80% of information
included.

Likely practicing speed reading will help to appreciate it more.

It's a bit like medium highlights - but it's designed by the author, it can be
really, really useful, but it's niche and very rare to see unfortunately.

~~~
LeonB
Although I feel the same surprise as you, (I didn’t realise some people would
interpret bold as yelling/condescension) ... I’m going to change the way I use
it.

I can’t control the reader, only my writing, so I’ll switch to italics or even
monospace (I’ll test both)

------
mikekchar
Anyone who has read any of my posts here knows that I suffer from an inability
to speak concisely. I feel I have a talent for being able to get my message
across clearly and this has helped me a lot at work. However, I have trouble
keeping the message size small enough so that most people will read to the
end.

Does anyone have any advice for improving on this front?

~~~
__jf__
Yes, write short.

This is the title of one of the chapters in “Writing without bullshit”,
hilariously followed by the first paragraph: “Use fewer words”.

Other tips from the book:

* Edit everything

* Aim for a word count

* Say what you really mean

* Start boldly

* Organize relentlessly

* Prune sections and arguments

* Use bullets or tables

* Use graphics

* Trim connective tissue

* Delete weasel-words and qualifiers

~~~
DonHopkins
William Strunk would shout to his class:

"Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!"

[https://www.brusselslegal.com/article/display/2563/Tip_2_Omi...](https://www.brusselslegal.com/article/display/2563/Tip_2_Omit_needless_words)

[https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#13](https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#13)

~~~
jaclaz
Umberto Eco would have added ;-):

13\. Don't be repetitious; don't repeat the same thing twice; repeating is
superfluous (redundancy means the useless explanation of something the reader
has already understood).

[http://gioclairval.blogspot.com/2010/02/umberto-ecos-
rules-f...](http://gioclairval.blogspot.com/2010/02/umberto-ecos-rules-for-
writing-well.html)

------
0j
I like and follow most of this, but the most important topic is missing: use
meaningful subjects! I don't want any "Re: Re: Re: Fw: Re: issue..." emails in
my inbox. Especially if I later want to find some specific email.

~~~
lucb1e
This. As an anti-spam measure (that worked flawlessly so far), instead of
putting an email address on my website, I have my website send an email to
people with the "From" address set to my address. The subject is something
like "To reach me, just reply to this email!"

A bunch of people used it, but not a single one managed to change the subject
line to describe what their email is actually about. Not one.

~~~
Phlogi
Well, maybe you should add: ... and change the subject :)

~~~
lucb1e
It's no biggie and sure I can change it to "change this", it's just odd to me
that nobody sets the subject line.

------
wastholm
Especially when addressing multiple recipients, I tend to write emails like:

> Hello,

> Short version: all-hands meeting to discuss painting of the bike shed, Thu 1
> Aug @ 14:30 in the board room. There will be cookies.

> Long version:

> <more details>

I also tend to first jot down a draft of the "long version", then edit it for
clarity and brevity, then write the "short version" last.

Edit: I find HN formatting weird sometimes.

~~~
namanyayg
Like TL;DRs on Reddit! Interesting, I think I'll incorporate this concept for
my long emails, thanks for sharing.

~~~
RHSeeger
Per the request of one of my early bosses, I include TL;DRs on my emails when
they get long. It can save people a fair amount of time.

------
mcs_
I highlight emergency/mistakes an bad things in general with red background.
Resolved situations or positive approach with green background. In both cases
white and bold font.

After a while, the same color pattern is emerging from customer communication.

~~~
souterrain
I had been a “true believer” in plain text email until I had a support vendor
document a problem using just this technique, including output from the system
in question in fixed-width font.

While I cringe at the majority of HTML email, this use case I find enormously
valuable.

------
DonHopkins
I like his recommendation to attach cat pictures to the Post Scriptum of every
message.

~~~
edejong
Personally I was hoping the cat-picture-meme would be a passing thing. I am
allergic to the little critters and am not particularly fond of them. They
carry parasites and bacteria which can be permanently harmful for us.

So, although I respect people wanting to have their own pets and take care of
them, I (and many others) think it is tasteless to project this affinity to
others in a professional setting.

~~~
cowb0yl0gic
"Lazarus Lazaridis' _personal blog_ with posts mostly related to programming
and opensource. _And cats_." I agree completely that "cutesy" things don't
belong in professional contexts (I like to make sensible exceptions
occasionally to reassure everyone that I am, in fact, human), but these are
his critters, so he is entitled to subject his readers to them (just like
someone who posts pictures of their happy-smiley family). Also, you should be
more concerned about humans, who carry parasites and bacteria (and viruses!)
which are vastly more dangerous to you. :)

------
tathagatadg
Neat! I have a dream - just like we have issue templates, have organization
wide email templates for internal communications. If every email sent in an
organization, adhere to 3 to four email templates - that would take away so
much of the cognitive load of parsing each snowflake and extracting the meat
out of them. As soon as you see a label in the first words of subject you know
what you are dealing with - like "bug", "defect", "enhancement" \- put
"delay", "escalate" etc. Instead of a free form text box with no word limits,
there will be more fields that enhance decision making - voting buttons,
highlights like you see on medium.

The word limit will stop the mind dump and make you be precise with the focus
on reaching a goal.

Some more unpopular ideas:

* A discussion would have follow up limits. Time or number. No month long threads, or 100 replies in half hours. Beyond a limit, it will automatically schedule a meeting for in person discussion to conclude on decisions

* email quotas - you can only send n emails within m hours to p persons

------
pflenker
I am missing one thing from the article: Your subject should be a clear,
concise summary of your mail! People will be looking at the subject of your
message MUCH more often than at the actual body.

------
enriquto
Putting a word in boldface is even more offensive than writing it in ALL CAPS.
If you are doing it more than once per year, you are doing it wrong.

~~~
bradstewart
Is this a common opinion? I find bold text to be very helpful since it
emphasizes the most important part.

~~~
enriquto
> Is this a common opinion?

I said this as a personal opinion; no idea how widespread that is. Boldface
strikes me as a lack of respect for the reader. An adult reader is supposed to
read the whole text. If there is non-important information, please omit it.

The idea if writing a short sentence at the beginning summarizing the action
to take is sound, however. It is even better if it appears in the subject of
the message.

~~~
gnuvince
> Boldface strikes me as a lack of respect for the reader. An adult reader is
> supposed to read the whole text.

Yeah, that's bullshit. Open any CS book on your shelf and you'll see different
fonts, different sizes, different weights, different background colors, etc.
Those books are not written for kids, they're written for adults—for
professionals. The goal of a writer is to control the reading process;
changing what the text looks like is one way to do that.

We separate the text into paragraphs to delineate different ideas, but also to
space out the text and give the reader a chance to breathe. We organize points
into bullet points because they're easy to spot, easy to scan, and we don't
need to make the text longer by adding flow between each point. We sometimes
use frames and a darker background for summaries, auxiliary information, etc.
to show that it's not part of the main text. We use large letters to identify
different chapters and sections. We use a monospaced font for code examples.
We write technical terms in italics when we first introduce them and want to
highlight that fact to the reader.

There are a multitude of ways in which we format text so that readers can
better follow. Bold is just one extra tool in that arsenal. Don't abuse it,
but don't forbid it entirely either.

------
gumboshoes
Pro tip: good subject lines improve the chances your email will be read, acted
on, remembered, and found again later. Every marketing person knows this but
the importance doesn't seem to leave that domain. Make them 45 characters or
less or so.

Bad: "Question" Good: "Any avail. tomorrow Tues. 12/2?"

Combine actual dates AND relative ones. Days of week help.

Bad: "Millie Smith" Good: "Millie Smith asst. dir. new hire"

Bad: "Tuesday" Good: "work from home - Tuesday planned power outage"

Bad: "report" Good: "2Q19 sales dept. new business report"

Bad: "canceled meeting" Good: "Wed. 4/3 sales meeting canceled"

------
gwbas1c
I try to keep most emails short: (Approximately) 3 sentences, broken into 3
paragraphs.

That's most peoples' attention span for email.

I only write longer emails when someone asks me a question; such as when a
manager asks me to research and root cause something. Even then, I usually try
to follow the 3-line rule, then put a ----, and then the longer email.

BTW: When I get a very loooong email, sent directly to me, I don't read it. I
will usually reply with something like, "I don't read long emails" and suggest
that the author find time to meet with me directly.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> reply with something like, "I don't read long emails" and suggest that the
> author find time to meet with me directly.

Everyone you suggested that to thinks you are a dick. They spent half an hour
or more writing just so you can absorb the information asynchronously at your
convenience rather than having to schedule yet-another meeting and take notes
-- and then you want to waste another half-hour of their time because you
can't be bothered reading.

~~~
gwbas1c
It's usually not a case of "absorb the information asynchronously," instead,
it's being upfront with ignoring rants.

------
hartator
I don’t fully agree with the bold part. I think a better way is to have a
small sentence summary at the top of the email. Like “I’ve started working on
the backup issues.”

------
t0astbread
This is in direct conflict with the "Use plaintext email" post from a while
ago but I honestly agree more with this one. Is Markdown in email a thing yet?

~~~
whafro
I know this isn't the question you were asking, but ostensibly, Markdown in
email has always been a thing, since it's intended to degrade gracefully to
human-interpretable formatting.

------
waylandsmithers
Interesting! I'm newer to software and have never done any communication about
bugs or other situations the article references via email-- it's always been
in person, in a Slack channel, or through JIRA or Github comment threads.

I guess it's just my company's culture but it's always been assumed that
people will not check or respond to email promptly, so project-related
information should not be communicated that way.

------
aorth
I'm a big proponent of using specific times and dates instead of—or in
addition to—words like "tomorrow" and "next week." It makes your email easier
to understand if you are looking at it any in your email archives or if you
communicate with people in different time zones.

~~~
aphextim
I work for a general contractor which has projects in all time-zones in the
United States (Minus Alaska/Hawaii).

We have many 12 hour day shift and 12 hour night shift projects that are
running 24/7.

Using the exact date you are referencing, using military time along with
timezone has been invaluable.

For example,

"John Doe,

We are moving the security clearance fingerprinting to be held next Friday,
August 9th at 14:30 EST"

or

"Jane Doe,

Just following up on the RFI we submitted yesterday, July 31st at 13:30 EST.
Were you able to review?"

This also helps when having to hold people accountable for not responding fast
enough when you include timestamps.

~~~
magicalhippo
This also makes it easier to catch mistakes. If you had said "next Friday,
August 8th", maybe you actually meant next Thursday.

------
Grumbledour
It tends to make you even more angry, though, if you took extra time to
emphasize and link messages and you get a unformatted, half sentence reply
from someone who clearly did not read the message. I think you should do it
anyway, but be prepared for frustration.

~~~
alttab
While completely true, this viewpoint is a little cynical. The challenge in
those instances is to think about how to lead these people positively to do
the same?

How can you make emails seem like a gift? That's how I approach it when I
write my best ones.

------
softwaredoug
At some point when I need to “structure an email” usually that’s a red flag to
me that I should format it as a report in an attached document (which can be
more detailed) then make the email a handful of sentences describing the
attached report.

------
prawn
I think the "Structure long messages" section could be more succinct.
Background, Consequences, etc (unless they're company standards) don't really
impart much information. It could be better to instead have practical info as
those titles.

e.g., instead of Background, have "Huge increase in log messages". Instead of
"Cause of the problem" have "Caused by bug in external library". That way, if
people only read the headings, they still get a useful understanding of the
issue immediately.

------
JeanMarcS
I always hesitate before using emphasis.

I’m afraid it will looks like I think the recipients are stupid or something.

But seeing it’s a good advice will change my view on that (I tend to write
long emails)

~~~
beshrkayali
I disagree. I always highlight in bold text the parts that I want people to
focus on more, especially in longish emails, or those where there are numbers
involved. I also appreciate it when people take the time to highlight what
they would like me to pay attention to. It shows a mutual respect of time.

------
highhedgehog
Huge missing thing: SUBJECTS. Please use descriptive subjects.

~~~
sorum
Indeed, it's the MOST important part.

Easiest way to do it - write it dead last.

Write your email in this order: 1\. Body of email 2\. Formatting: fix the
paragraphs, bold/underline, create headers if longer piece 3\. Subject line

~~~
highhedgehog
> Easiest way to do it - write it dead last.

Yep! Agreed.

Still i constantly receive mails that are not descriptive enough. If there are
IDs to change requests, deploys etc, why don't you put that ID in the subject
so it's easy to get to it later?!

------
andrewshadura
Is this a joke?

~~~
0xffff2
What, specifically do you disagree with? Personally I go the plaintext route
for email, but if I was writing HTML emails this advice all seems pretty sound
to me.

------
ubermonkey
This is a pretty great summary of effective email communication. People would
do well to internalize it. I'm glad to see it here on HN.

------
gfiorav
I feel like emphasizing is hiding the fact that your email contains arbitrary
things.

I tend to not decorate and encourage people to read the whole thing.

Less is better.

------
gHosts
And on the subject of what most not to do....

For pity sake don't send a picture of a log or an error dump..... send the
text.

Please.

Pretty please.

With tears in my eyes.

------
krisalty
Or you know, pick up a phone and call. I think for most people, it is very
rare that they write an essay of an email to someone. And if you are an
academic or some professional, you should be doing these things anyways. Or is
that the point?

------
robbiemitchell
Obligatory link to an explanation of the BLUF ("bottom line up front") format:
[https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-
pre...](https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision)

I see too many people write long emails, both in total word count and in word
count per paragraph. Then they wonder why it takes someone 1-2 weeks to
respond.

Unless you're working in an environment that thrives on them, such as
academia, a long email creates a significant cognitive burden on someone who
is probably trying to context switch as fast as possible. Combine it with a
lack of clear action for the reader -- "What are your thoughts?", for example
-- and you will find your emails left indefinitely on their "too hard" pile.

------
cs02rm0
TL;DR Use HTML features (and dates).

Yes, it's 2019 and I'm still in favour of plaintext emails. Sorry.

~~~
vbsteven
Adding links and plaintext emails are not mutually exclusive. Hackernews
comments are a great example where commenters often embed a [1] tag in their
comment and at the end of the comment have a section like

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

~~~
cs02rm0
None of the HTML features the author uses lack a plaintext equivalent.

~~~
vbsteven
I disagree. We've been doing this for decades on mailinglists

# example heading

You can add _emphasis_ with asterisk or _underscores_. Links can be done with
[1] tags

And as an alternative, nothing stops you from using Markdown syntax in
plaintext emails for adding structure like (nested) bullet lists.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

~~~
0xffff2
I think you misread the comment you're responding to, and are therefore
_agreeing_.

------
dugluak
Maybe it's just a bad example in the article. It seems like a regular
conversation between a group of people to get things done in an organization.
At least in our organization that type of conversation happens in a quick
meeting or some collaboration app link Slack or Microsoft Teams, formal
composition of messages is not necessary in those kinds of platforms. Email
seems to be an overkill for stuff like this ...

~~~
0xffff2
I find the idea that email could be overkill compared to any length of meeting
to be hilariously backwards. Maybe it's just the particular dysfunction of my
organization, but any meeting between more than two people requires multiple
emails to set up.

~~~
dugluak
[ Hello all,

I noticed that there are many logs for blabla the last few days and I don't
think that it is normal. I believe the problem is the updated version of gem
blabla.

I have opened an issue describing the case in Redmine (#455) in the current
version. Feel free to change its priority in case blabla.

Thanks, Lazarus ]

My point is that the above piece of conversation happening over an email is
super slow and backwards. Lazarus should just be able to talk to the group
directly which a platform like Slack or Teams makes possible.

~~~
0xffff2
We clearly exist in radically different worlds. To me, sending that email _is_
talking directly to the group. Nobody at my org uses Skype (our organization's
IM service of choice). Email works just fine. If it's actually important and
the person or people you're emailing are actually available, email is no
slower than IM/chat.

~~~
dugluak
I agree Email is slow is an arguable statement, for email you need to add
recipients sometimes CC and BCC carefully plus you need
Hi/Hello/Thanks/Signature etc which makes it more formal for daily
communication for getting things done. My Second issue with email is, in the
above example let's say Bob and Alice have different questions about Lazarus's
email and start typing their responses at the same time and send them. Now you
have 2 different threads of the email and this can go on and on and in no time
you have chains of emails flying around. Let's say John (one of the people
copied on that email) is on vacation. He is going to have tough time trying to
go through that mess and piece everything together.

------
mike_kamau
This is great advice. Thanks for posting

------
aphroz
These examples looks like bug reports that I don't want to read.

The bold/non-bold text, email not balanced and too long paragraphs mixing
numbers and letters makes me wanna vomit, not because it's disgusting but more
like when you read in a car.

I agree with links though.

------
highhedgehog
I need to spam this in my company

------
mhxion
In case you TL;DR, the takeaway:

\- Keep it "concise", "ascribed", and "specific". By concise, avoid irrelevant
details; by ascribed, write necessary data even though it's obvious but saves
time for the reader by not having to look up, i. e., complete date mm-dd-yy
instead of yesterday/tomorrow, links for references; by specific, avoid
ambiguity, separate lines for each required query.

\- Use proper text formatting, i.e, <bold> important texts, wrap links with
titles.

\- Divide long email into separate paragraphs, each can contain its subject.
i.e., the way most SaaS services publishes postmortem about an outage or
vulnerability.

Note: I've read many articles on writing good emails, this article focuses on
the technical team, which in itself follows its guidelines.

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mavdi
Christ, this is terrible advice. So overzealous and at times I get a childish
vibe from the emails written. Please don't do any of this people.

~~~
0xffff2
Really? Aside from the emphasis and cat pictures, this all seems like basic
advice that's borderline mandatory if you want people to actually read and
understand your emails. If you have specific rebuttals to using specific
dates, including relevant links, structuring emails well, and making action
items clear, I'd really like to hear them.

