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Dani Araujo's avatar

I started asking people (later) how I could improve my messages for a better understanding. Some admitted they skipped my messages, some pretend it was confusing (but we're clear they didn't read) and some actually provided good feedback.

As everything, it needs to be adapted to the public, so in the end what I try to do (not for everything of course) is breaking and formatting long messages in a way that is easier for people to get the piece of information they need.

In some cases I also update the original message (making it easier to digest for the next person). It's helpful when someone just tags you in a thread with a lot of messages and you need to read them all to get context.

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Fran Soto's avatar

Very easy to misinterpret things in writing.

Last week I was discussing something and an engineer was sharp and concise. It seemed he was clear on how things worked, but I had my doubts after reading some docs. We jumped into a call and then I could see how he was not so clear about it.

I think expressing our intention in writing is important. Otherwise, someone replying with a question can be interpreted as 1) A genuine question, 2) A rhetoric question humiliating you...

Nice article, Anton!

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