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I'm certain they are refusing to read it. I try to be sensitive to thinking I'm being clear when in reality I'm not.

Here is a screen grab of a typical email. https://imgur.com/5d36jpq

The first questions I get are "when is first practice".




this is actually a good example to demonstrate my point. you don't explicitly say when the first practice is, only that they recur every tuesday and friday. the "see you next tuesday!" strongly implies that the first practice is the tuesday that immediately follows, but the reader doesn't get this needed context until the very end of the email. I bet if you put something like "starting next tuesday (dd/mm/yyyy)" in the Practices section, you would get fewer of those questions.

all the information is there for an active reader to figure out what they need to do, but I can see how a linear reader (who isn't holding all the information in their head to begin with) could miss it. I had to reread the email to know exactly when the first practice would be. an extremely pedantic reader might be unsure whether "see you next tuesday!" refers to a second informational meeting or the first actual practice.


This is a great point. If I may, I get 2 types of questions on this specific point. "When is first practice?" which is a good question as you point out. I also get " when are practices" which is pretty clear unless they have poorly phrased "when is first practice" with this question and now we've both committed the same error.

Good point either way.




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