"This report by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read."
Wordiness
During the course of a busy day, receiving a long and detailed email is seldom welcomed. Worse still, the longer a correspondence is, the less likely it is to be read. There also is a distinct possibility that even if it is read, it may not be done completely or with full attention.
If a long email is necessary, the proper Netiquette should be followed to insure readability, the early introduction of a major topic and a brief explanation for the need to have a long message. It may also be best to have the correspondence divided and sent separately.
One long-term negative factor of sending a long or verbose message may set a bad precedent in which the recipient will not immediately or ever read future correspondence.· Kind of
· Sort of
· For all intents and purposes
· In other words
· Basically, actually
· As previously stated
· Generally speaking
· In particular
· Generally, in general
Redundant words and appositives
An appositive is defined (by reference.com) as a word or phrase to identify, amplify or rename the preceding word. These can be unnecessarily obvious. Samples of these appositives which add no value are shown below:
Wordy: | This is an example of an appositive which provides unnecessary identification. George Washington, the first president of the United States and a founding father . . . |
Better: | George Washington, the first president . . . |
Best | George Washington . . . |
Most email writers cannot avoid using redundant pairs and this is a common mistake made even in brief messages. Some generic examples of these include:
· past remembrances
· basic fundamentals
· true facts
· honest truth
· terrible tragedy
· final outcome
· unexpected surprise
· past history
· future plans
· boundary line
There are many, many more of these and the best way to reduce their usage is to maintain good Netiquette in messages and to edit text before sending.
I agree that long emails are bad netiquette because recipients do not read them. Interesting advice. I sort of like some of those phrases. Sort of can be removed : )The redundant pairs advice is excellent. Great post!
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