Does part of your daily professional communication involve a constant flow of detailed e-mail exchanges, both internal and external? Keep your messages as easy to navigate as possible. Think of the many newsletters, promotional e-mails, and electronic resources you are literally forced to peruse every day. Obviously, no one reads everything. There are some tricks of the trade to keeping information concise, easier for your audience to find, and more visually pleasing to the eye.

Concise

Using lists can literally be a breath of fresh air after a long, cumbersome paragraph rich with technical jargon. Lists can be:

• Chronological-reporting actions or events as they took place in time
• Sequential-in one particular order
• Descending order of importance- most important item first, least important last
• Ascending order of importance- least important item first, most important item last (the bill you owe us!)

Easier for Audience to Find

Subheadings are a great way to logically separate chunks of information which will visually stand out to the reader (they’re being used in this post to help you navigate). Depending on the nature of the e-mail, this may be a strong fit. You can draw these out by italicizing, underlining, or making them bold.

In a less formalized, more back-n-forth communication, clear topic sentences would be better starts for each section. This helps your audience know what the rest of the passage is about.

More Visually Pleasing to the Eye

Use real estate on the “page” wisely. Try to avoid overuse of punctuation, such as dash marks for lists, 1,2,3, here, and a bulleted list elsewhere. Aim for consistency in your choice of layout. If anything can be appropriately annexed in an attachment, then allow it to be. The more you can say with less is better.

A final word. This week on Twitter, someone said “Business is social.” I believe it was @KikiValdes. I could not agree more, especially on this topic. If there is ever an opportunity to pick up the phone or be face to face with someone in lieu of e-mail, then do it every once in a while. Also, watch for what you enjoy or what makes you “feel good” in the personable language, style, tone, and writing characteristics of a particular writer at your work. It’s okay to borrow ideas from people; this can be the best form of flattery.

Happy writing. Remember, we want to answer your questions, so get engaged!