The Language of Success: Business Writing That Informs, Persuades, and Gets Results

Answering Questions

When you answer a question, it’s a good idea to reference the question

itself. Your reader might be able to find the question in the chain of

connected e-mails linked below your reply, but many e-mail systems

automatically truncate the chain. Also, it’s possible the person who

asked the question has become so busy that he or she has now forgot-

ten the context of the question. To make your answer easy to read and

understand, use a subject line that references the fact that your reader

asked you something and then restate the question in brief. After you

do that, your answer will unfold naturally and logically. Here are two

examples, one showing how not to do it and the other written in the

language of success:

134 The Language of Success

think that IE 7 will pose any problems, but we do need to test it thor-

oughly in our environment before anyone starts using it. At this point,

our IT folks haven’t finished the testing process. They expect to com-

plete it within the next two weeks.

In the meantime, please do not download IE 7 to any computers that

will connect to our corporate network. This includes your company-

issued desktop and laptop computers and any systems you have at

home that you use to dial in to our network.

If you believe you have a need for using IE 7 because of new function-

ality or for some other reason, please contact me or Megan Chen via

email first. Briefly describe why you need it. We’ll do our best to ex-

pedite the assessment for you.

Thanks for your help in keeping our operating environment stable

and safe.

Sven

SUBJECT: Marketing

Gwen—

Lead generation from search engines, even those where we pay for top

placement, has gone down over the past 18 months, so that it is now

about equivalent to the number of leads generated from our print ads

in specialist journals.

Reuben