March 27th, 2009
One-Line E-Mail: Snappy and Precise
When sending rapid-fire e-mails back and forth across the office, it’s fine to write one-line messages. Those messages don’t even have to be complete sentences. When you know your audience well, sentence fragments can be efficient and effective. Take a look at these very effective incomplete sentences:
- To consider at today’s meeting: deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
- Monday, March 6–OK.
- Sure–when we get budget approval.
Just be sure to be quite clear. Sentence fragments can be ambiguous, sound overly blunt, or give your reader the impression that your message isn’t important. Like I wrote in my previous post, sometimes saving space wastes time. Just keep your audience clearly in view.
For more tips on keeping e-mail efficient and effective with sentence fragments, check out chapter four in E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide.