For example I’ll send an e-mail with 3 questions and will only get an answer to one of the questions. It’s worse when there are 2 yes/no questions with a question that is obviously not a yes/no question. Then I get a response of
Yes
back in the e-mail. So which question are they answering?
Mainly I’m asking all of you why do people insist on only answering 1 question out of an e-mail where there are multiple? Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?
Edit at this point I’ve got the answers . Some are too lazy to actually read. Some admit they get focused on one item and forget to go back. I understand the second group. The first group yeah no excuse there.
Continuing edit: there are comments where people have tried the bullet points and they say it still doesn’t help. I might put the needed questions in red.
Yes.
Considering your wording in the last paragraph, I’m going to guess that your writing style is frequently overwhelming. Making sure that questions are clearly isolated (I’d suggest using numeric lists or bullet points) makes it clear what response you’re expecting.
Additionally, if you’re asking several difficult questions, it’s likely that people will lose the thread partway through.
This is what I was thinking too. Failure to exercise brevity is the leading cause of people not having the time for your email.
Not OP, but I experience difficulty articulating what I mean while staying formal. How to improve?
Bullet points. If you don’t have a rapport spell things out paragraph style and then finish the email off with something like this…
So considering the above I’d like to get your opinion on these points:
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Do you think the widget should be blue or orange?
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Given the expected market impact do we want to bring in PR for our e-widget announcement?
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I’m sorry but there is no difference between putting them in bullet points, or typing like I did. People need to learn to read.
Side note :
I’ve tried bullet points.
I’ve tried putting multiple return carriages between each question.
I’ve putting all the questions end on end
and it makes no difference end result is the same.
Add in a lot of the other comments saying they have the same problem it isn’t just me
“Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?”
Not much, what is going on with you?
You can get mad at everyone else or you can start playing to the lowest common denominator.
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Question 1
-
Question 2
-
Question 3
This.
And if they don’t answer all three, the only response they get is a repeat of the missing question.
After a day.
this is the way. if you really want the highest chance of all questions being answered, number them.
Tried that. Got the same result
jokes on you, they still wont respond them, or even mark which one they responded to. you have to send 3 different messages even if emails
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It’s not that they “insist” on not answering, they just have limited reading comprehension and/or attention span. With experience you learn to ask exactly one question in an email, and maybe you’ll get an answer some of the time, and if you’re lucky it will be coherent.
It really is a sad State of affairs that reading comprehension is so bad that people can’t answer questions in written form.
I mean it’s literally written down you can’t miss it.
And to clarify this is more of me complaining because I’ve experienced this a lot. It’s most apparent in online discussions, where seemingly a majority of what you say gets completely skipped missed or misinterpreted and replies often focus on just a couple words of your statement instead of understanding sometimes even just a whole paragraph.
It is a sad state but it’s like the weather, you can complain about it or dress for it.
I enjoy raging against it.
Good point, I rant about winter all the time.
… Or both?
Why make a false dichotomy out of it?
Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?
I can read
My colleagues complain of the same things, saying they’ve tried everything. But I never have that issue.
Here’s an example of what they might send: Hello Bob, we have just recieved all your documents, so thank you. But upon review, we have found that we are still missing x,y,z. In order to expedite the process we ask for your cooperation.
- At your earliest convenience, can you please send not more than twelve months of documents x and how they pertain to y?
- Can you clarify why z contains a substantial difference from the previous times it occurred in September 2020, October 2020? Don’t hesitate to contact us with any further questions!
Here’s what I would say instead: Hi Bob, to finish the file we require:
- A max 12 months of documents x (showing y)
- Why is z now so different from 2020 Sept, Oct? Thanks in advance.
I know of 5 people I work with who will moat likely send you 10 months of documents x (showing y) as a response to your example, 12 if you are lucky.
No, they will not even acknowledge #2. They would have the same reaponse to your first, wordier version because they are just doing the first request and barely noticed you had a two digit number.
I do a mix of both.
Start short and get to the point.
Add any extra crap below it.
Hey Bob we need X/Y/Z to finish the thing. Can you send it ASAP so we can continue.
Additional details:
- X is needed because of blah blah blah. Confirming the measurement and parts needed.
- Y is needed for compliance reporting in sister department in case of an audit.
- Z is requested by the project manager to justify additional man hours and assign more staff so we can meet the deadline.
Poor reading comprehension skills are more prevalent than we think
54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level). source
The level of frustration from online discussions when the things you say are entirely missed or misinterpreted is a great example of this.
Even mildly complex topics that touch anything politically charged or emotionally charged tend to be subject to groupthink dynamics in a format where group think is largely just a result of poor reading comprehension.
Reading comprehension has gone down the tubes. I dunno if it’s from people watching too many TikToks and their attention span can’t handle reading more than one sentence anymore, or what, but I have definitely noticed a change in people’s ability to read and understand the content of what they just read.
Where I work, my old boss never wrote anything down, did not like to communicate via email, and insisted on phone calls/verbal meetings instead. When they announced they were taking a new job, we begged them to create an SOP of all the things they did with detailed instructions because NONE of it had ever been written down. We were told no, they couldn’t do that. No explanation other than “I can’t.” And I’m convinced that they simply couldn’t read, or could BARELY read.
So I created the SOP instead, detailed as hell, everything in one place. Sections, subsections, hyperlinks, it’s all there. 2 new employees come into the office, I’m supposed to train them. I do, and I show them the SOP, tell them “everything you need to know is in this SOP”, so that AFTER I train them, they can reference it.
They never reference it, ever. They ask me how to do the things they’ve forgotten instead. I just point them to the correct section in the SOP and tell them to read it. BUT THEY DON’T READ. It’s insane! How do they get by in life in general!?
You’re right. The illiteracy is everywhere. It’s a very troubling sign.
I wonder, were there any other points in history, post-literacy, where a significant amount of people went to school yet still lacked literacy skills? If it has happened, would it even be recorded? Or is this aspect of modern society truly novel?
It’d be nice to know how such a situation would’ve been rectified in the past, but I get the feeling the solution would be the same thing I’ve been calling for since my own childhood - a comprehensive public educational system with a focus on critical thinking.
It would be interesting to see if it’s ever happened in the past, for sure. I too assumed it was due to poor education, but the three people I mentioned (my old boss and the 2 new coworkers) all came from different areas of the U.S. and are each in different generations (1 Boomer, 1 Gen X, 1 Millennial), so they all have very different backgrounds/education experiences, yet they ALL struggle to read anything longer than a single sentence. It’s infuriating. I try to be patient, because hey, we all have our thing we suck at, but it’s honestly a little scary that they and so many other are out there not following directions simply because they can’t read them.
In the US it’s probably because literacy and reading comprehension is the lowest it’s been since the 80s.
In email, I always make my questions the last thing right before my signature as a call to action. I think many people skip reading the entire email, but may read the line above the signature if they see a question mark. You always want the last thing they read to be the idea they have to act on THIS part.
- Phrase your questions unambiguously
- Bonus points for phrasing them with a binary response: “Do you want A or B?” or “Do you approve that we can move forward with the plan as stated here?”
- Only ask the questions you REALLY need an answer to. Every next question risks losing a answer you really need.
- Make self liquidating statements instead of questions “If you want a different path let me know. Unless I from you by the next Tuesday, I’m moving forward with what I described in this email”
If you write open ended or ambiguous questions you risk your audience having to take time to think about a response and they get distracted. Risky questions in this area are: “So what do you want to do here?” or “What do you think?”
Been doing email since it began. Same frustrations.
Solutions (workarounds):
- Email is structured with “executive summary” & “detail”. That way I can write all the words I want but people can only read the first paragraph.
- Never ask questions. Tell them what I’m going to choose, & give them opportunity to disagree. That way if they don’t respond usefully I can take their “non-response” as a response & proceed anyway.
- If I need to ask a question, use a phone call or go to their desk, or (shudder) make a meeting.
My rule is more than 2 questions and it’s a phone call.
Sounds like your emails are too long. Trim it to the minimum amount of words to get your point across and be professional, and put all questions in a numbered list.
For me? Usually it’s because answering the first question on the list took a lot of time, research, or mental energy and I had forgotten there were other questions by the time I finally had the answer written down. Sense of accomplishment, hit send.
