E-style

The co-author of the 'Strunk and White' of e-style talks email, via email, with Murray Whyte

Apr 29, 2007 04:30 AM
Murray Whyte

From: Whyte, Murray
To: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Mon Apr 23 23:06:39 2007
Subject: Send

Dear Mr. Schwalbe --

Murray Whyte here at the Toronto Star. I've been steered your way -- and handed your email address -- by the helpful folks at Knopf Canada (which I hope isn't an impropriety; I appreciate the ground upon which I tread).

In any event, I (and doubtless many other prospective interviewers) thought it might be appropriate to conduct the interview over email. A tad obvious, perhaps, but at the same time, I'm curious to see what idiosyncrasies you deem permissible in your own missives.

Nick Paumgarten in The New Yorker called Send the "Strunk and White" of email; was the goal so earnest, or was it meant with some humour as well?

I'll await your first reply and we'll take it from there.

All best, MW

P.S. I tend to include the original message in replies, for easy reference to the context being discussed; is that allowed?)

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from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
From: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Wed 4/25/2007 10:22 AM
To: Whyte, Murray
Subject: SEND Star Interview

Dear Mr. Whyte:

First, please do call me Will.

Thank you so much for yours. I am a big fan of Toronto. I'm delighted to be interviewed via email for the Toronto Star.

I am still on tour so my schedule isn't quite my own. And this reply is reprentative of an on-the-go thumb-typed handheld email -- you will notice that I have kept the "sent from Blackberry" message so that people, including yourself, I hope, will be more inclined to forgive terseness and typos.

As for your kind question: We wanted to write a book people would enjoy reading, but also one that a business owner or manager could give to her or his staff. We are all emailing so much that it's amazing the effect it has on your life if you can just do it a bit better. And it's amazing the effect it has on your business, too. When done well, email is a great timesaver. But in most offices, it becomes the hugest time-waster.

As for The New Yorker's very kind Strunk and White comment -- we were thrilled with that comparison as that book is one of our favorites. We wouldn't dare compare what we wrote to it, but Strunk and White's classic was definitely an inspiration.

And with regard to your p.s. -- including the whole thread with each reply is definitely allowed. But it's also fine to trim it back when the exchange gets long or the topic starts to change. It's an important courtesy not to keep sending the same large attachment back and forth.

All best!

Will

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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

From: Whyte, Murray
To: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Mon Apr 25 12:14:39 2007

Hi Will --

First off, thanks for the quick reply, and from whichever far-flung place (Ohio? Arkansas?) you might find yourself.

And please feel free to drop the "Mr. Whyte," as well; Murray is fine.

I notice in your reply that you've broken down my various points and addressed them individually, but without quoting my original queries; and then doing so in the original order it appeared.

Most of us, I think, are much less meticulous in our email habits -- owing, perhaps, to the immediacy of the medium, and its (sometimes unfortunate) ability to capture (and expedite) thoughts the moment they occur to us. In other words, I suppose it can be as organic as conversation; is this a bad thing?

And your thumbs must be well practiced and nimble on that Blackberry keyboard; nary a typo (or a note of terseness) to be found. Looking forward to your reply, MW

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From: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Wed 4/25/2007 10:22 AM
To: Whyte, Murray
Subject: SEND Star Interview -- Addressing Multiple Points

Dear Murray:

I'm in Nashville, TN. I'm incredibly excited about an upcoming visit to the Pancake Pantry. I'm trying to decide what kind of pancake to have. I'm thinking blueberry. But that could change.

As for how to answer an email with many questions. . . there's no right or wrong way. We think it's more a matter of style. And a matter of just making sure you are doing it clearly and cordially.

I prefer to paraphrase quickly and take the questions in order. When you quote extensively, it just needlessly lengthens the email. And when you interlace, it can be tough for the recipient or someone to whom the email is forwarded to discern whose words are whose. If you use color or font to differentiate your answers, it might not come out as you intend. When emails go from one format to another -- or are read on a handheld -- they can go a bit wonky.

And sometimes people use All Caps for their interstitial commentary, but that still looks like shouting.

Interstitial commentary can get very abrupt -- so you start by addressing points politely but wind up inserting phrases like, "No," or, "I think not," and any cheeriness left from your cordial opening evaporates.

Our point about meticulousness is this: the more careful emails you send, the better and fewer you receive. The responsibility really lies with the sender. One good trick with multiple questions is to number them so that the recipient can reply by number. You often get a shorter and clearer response.

And, most important, there's less chance that one of your questions will go unanswered. That saves you the follow-up email and saves your recipient the reply to your follow-up and saves you the thank you for the reply to your follow-up, and, well, you get the picture. It saves you a lot of email!

One of the dangers of email is that we think it's a conversation, but it really isn't. It's permanent and searchable.

Even IM'ing, which is much more conversational, can be permanent. It's often (as you suggest!) when committing those spur of the moment thoughts to the keyboard that we get in the most trouble.

Oh, and thanks for the nice words on the thumb typing. A future Olympic event perhaps? I do see I messed up the word "representative," which would cause the judges to dock me a full point, I fear.

All best!

Will

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From: William Schwalbe
Sent: Wed 4/25/2007 12:43 PM
To: Whyte, Murray
Subject: SEND Star Interview

Dear Murray:

One quick question I should have asked at the start:

I'm hoping that if you reproduce the emails you can blur or leave out my actual email addresses -- one is my job; the other my personal. I have a "book" email address I'm delighted to give out, which is will@thinkbeforeyousend.com -- and I answer that very promptly. Thanks!

Will

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From: Whyte, Murray
To: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Mon Apr 25 12:58:39 2007
Subject: RE: SEND Star Interview

By all means -- we'd never publish your email address. But would your home phone number be all right?

That was a joke. Email doesn't convey such things very well, does it?

Back to your previous missive. . . actually, on to this one: I just did what I usually do when I'm not doing "business" communication.

i tend not to capitalize, or use punctuation beyond ellipses. . . i'm not sure how i developed this habit. . . but it always struck me as an expression of this loose, informal realm . . .

Has that changed? Are different modes of emailing appropriate for different types of conversations? Or is it a degradation of the written word -- which, of course, this is?

Speaking of degradation, what do you do about the legions of pre-teens who no longer use actual words? "r u thr? lol -- i c u!!!!" That sort of thing. Should -- or can -- a standard even be set, or is it simply to evolve via usage -- like language itself. I shudder to think... Thanks for the continued replies, will look forward to the next. MW

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From: William Schwalbe
Sent: Wed 4/25/2007 2:43 PM
To: Whyte, Murray
Subject: SEND Star Interview

Excellent. Just as long as you put my social security number on there too!

As for jokes on email -- they can indeed be dangerous. If you hadn't said you were joking I would have guessed you were, but then if you went ahead and actually put my home number in the piece -- well, the joke would have been on me and I would have had no one to blame but myself!

We are totally fine with informal capitalization and punctuation, so long as the meaning is still clear and so long as you are writing an informal email. Obviously, one of the great things about punctuation is it helps your reader figure out what you mean and make sense of what you write. As we say in the book, there's a world of difference between "No thanks to you!" and "No. Thanks to you!"

You can tell if your style is appropriate based on the response you get. If you write someone all in lower case and people email back similarly, it means they are happy writing that way. But if they write back with proper spelling and punctuation, you might want to mirror that.

Also, we've discovered that this business of pre-teens and abbreviations may be something of a myth. Kids are writing far more today than they ever used to. (When I was growing up, we barely wrote each other at all.) So they may even be writing better. And LOL isn't inherently any worse than FYI or any of the abbreviations adults use. I can't lay my hands on it right now -- but I saw an interesting study that showed that IM's among young people are far more grammatical that most people think or than the media portrays. Of course, text messages are usually abbreviations -- but that's just good sense and economy. When we've talked to young people, they seem to care about good grammar and spelling and proper address every bit as much as older people. No age group has a monopoly on good or bad emailing, and lots of people hunger for a return to some basic standards. If occasionally young people are oddly casual in their form of address (Hey, Yo, Hi Will), that may just be about a culture where young people are more encouraged than they used to be to call parents of friends (and even teachers) by first name. It's not necessarily a sign of disrespect and doesn't, we think, have drastic cultural consequences.

When I was in high school, I didn't know how to write a memo. I had to learn in the workplace. Similarly, just because people know how to write social emails doesn't mean they know how to write ones for work. But that's something that can and should be easily taught -- and most people get it quickly, again regardless of age.

Does that make sense?

I'm about to go incommunicado until Friday as I have to get a speech ready for tonight and then I'm traveling all tomorrow. Hope that's okay.

Best!

Will

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From: Whyte, Murray
To: Schwalbe, Will
Sent: Mon Apr 25 3:18:39 2007
Subject: RE: SEND Star Interview

Many thanks for your time, Will; I'll try to catch you with a final query before you vanish:

Email has obviously become a prevalent form of communication. As you point out, it's done many good things: It can save time; it can help keep people in various locations "in the loop;" and as an everyday medium, it has more of us writing than perhaps ever before.

But is there anything email can't -- or shouldn't -- do? Thanks again for all your time, and best wishes. MW

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From: William Schwalbe
Sent: Wed 4/25/2007 4:30 PM
To: Whyte, Murray
Subject: What email is good for

My pleasure! You got me just before I go silent for a while.

We think email is great for informing, commenting, and confirming. But it's not good for emotional content, especially negative emotion. It's not good for reaching agreement among a group of people. And so much more. We spoke to Robin Mamlet, who was dean of admission at Stanford and is now an executive recruiter. She doesn't use email for checking references, for example, because she finds that when she checks on the phone, the slight catch in someone's voice or hesitation before an answer can be the signal she needs to explore deeper. You don't get this on email.

Thankfully, no form of communication has replaced showing up in person for certain things, or calling when that isn't possible. The other really important point to make is that sometimes the alternative to email isn't face-to-face communication -- it's silence.

Email makes it easy to always try to score the last point -- but sometimes it's better to give things a rest. Thanks for all the great questions!

All best,

Will