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The email nobody answers

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Show notes

Put the ask first

The first episode is about the email you sent twice and still got no reply to. Farida reads three real examples sent in by listeners, from a supplier, a junior engineer and a parent writing to a school, and rewrites each one aloud, explaining every cut.

  • Why the reader decides in the first line whether to keep reading
  • Moving the request to the top and the background to the bottom
  • Cutting the three apologies most people open with
  • Making it possible to answer with one word

Send your own unanswered email through the show page and Farida may rewrite it in a future episode.

Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Second Draft. My name is Farida Haque, I edited newspaper copy for seven years, and now I teach writing to people who insist they are not writers. Engineers, bankers, civil servants, all of them writing all day. This show is for you. Each episode, one problem, fixed live. Today, the email nobody answers. You know it. You wrote it carefully, you were polite, you sent it on Monday and again on Thursday, and nothing. I have three real examples here from listeners, names removed, and I am going to rewrite each one out loud so you hear exactly why the first version sank. By the end you will have four rules, and the first one is going to feel rude. It is not. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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