tips for better emails

Long emails can look intimidating, and a long sequence of long paragraphs, possibly including long run-on sentences that do not seem to stop but do not seem to go anywhere either — sentences filled with extraneous words that add little to the meaning but serve to confuse with multifaceted and sometimes conflicting possible interpretations —, can make the recipient read less than if the message had been only, uh, about 3 sentences — three witty, concise and precise sentences — long.

http://email.about.com/od/netiquettetips/qt/et012903.htm

Email writing is its own art form. Done well, your reader gets your point quickly, knows what action you expect them to take, and is encouraged to respond with more information or better ideas.

In other words, it doesn’t waste their time and moves the conversation along. In this simplicity is power.

But all too often — and you see this every day — corporate emails are a mess of jumbled ideas, too long with unnecessary info, or too brief for clarity.

http://blogs.bnet.com/harvard/?p=1033

Quick Tips From An Email Marketing Maven

1. It’s all about relevance. Be interesting. Don’t be self-serving.

2. Keep it short and sweet so people read it immediately. “I’ll get to it later” is the kiss of death.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4384/8-Great-Tips-From-An-Email-Marketing-Maven.aspx

* No rambling stories or long intros.
* Get to the point quickly.
* Next action clearly stated.
* Present benefits.
* Fonts and formatting matter.
* Review for conciseness, simplicity and clarity.
* One question per email.
* Be yourself – that is, the concise version of yourself.

http://thinksimplenow.com/productivity/15-tips-for-writing-effective-email/

A recent survey by Information Mapping Inc. found that 34% of respondants indicated that they wasted between 30 and 60 minutes a day reading badly written emails.

Typical failings included:

1. recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information
2. content is disorganized
3. critical information is missing or hard to find, and
4. content is too long, wordy and difficult to read.

# A clear, strong subject line helps people prioritise their inboxes.
# If the subject of an email dialogue has changed, change the subject line but put the old subject (was: in brackets) after the new subject for continuity.
# Emails are more like telexes than letters. Imagine you are paying by the word. Don’t give the background, history, your life story. Stick to relevant facts and requests.
# Write well: strong, active verbs, avoid jargon and abbreviations, use fewer words.

http://www.badlanguage.net/ten-tips-for-better-emails

Taylor Swift Pranked By Ellen Degeneres

you probably think

sinead’s hand

Support MarriagEquality’s campaign for same-sex marriage in Ireland

you just can’t say no

(315): i fell off the bed in the middle of it, and he yelled “5 second rule” and kept fucking me. i think im in love

(908): you just can’t say no to drugs on a mirrored table.

(512): after a few more beers I realized that both my wife and I like Latin men.

(801): I would really like to get high with Bill Nye. I’m being dead serious. Every step I take is literally a step I take because it will take me closer to Science Guy high.
(1-801): We could get him to build Inspector Gadget.
(801): I didn’t know you were high TOOOO!!!

(307): If i off myself, it’ll be in a lobster costume in the hot tub with butter…

http://textsfromlastnight.com/

In light of your adhering to strict dictionary definitions, though

I disagree — I think many of us do pick words out of the air–at least in terms of tending toward popular usage rather than deferring to dictionary definition. Furthermore, situations of heightened emotion, whether they enter the realm of abnormality, can cause some to tend to wax hyperbolic.

In light of your adhering to strict dictionary definitions, though, perhaps we all might need to reexamine “vulgar” word use given their dictionary definitions: I doubt, for example, that most things are as “awesome” or “radical” as some might suggest.

bravo.

http://ask.metafilter.com/114010/How-do-I-curb-obsessive-hypothetical-relationship-thoughts

just be sure your life includes a square meal of other things too

I think that life experience may solve this for you. Even though we all will always feel excited about new romantic prospects, your own heart will put the brakes on for you as you go forward. You’ll love the infatuation phase, and at the same time you’ll know that’s what it is, and you’ll be able to focus on other stuff as needed. You’re right that the person may not be right for you, and over time you’ll be better and better at understanding that when things don’t work out. Right now, you might allow yourself to just enjoy it. The guys feel this too; don’t worry. As far as keeping a hold on your sanity – just be sure your life includes a square meal of other things too – nights out with friends, reading and relaxing, time outdoors, learning, family contact and hot baths, whatever your range of activities normally is. They’ll provide you relief from obsession and comfort in your own identity. And as long as you maintain those things that are truly you, you can feel as infatuated as you like and as giddy about message-checking as you want. Don’t deprive yourself of the joys of courtship – they fade soon enough.

I agree with lia; the future of healthfully manageing relationship interactions is going to need to include, not exclude, social networking apps. They’re not just a trendy hobby, they’re where a lot of people spend a lot of their day and do a lot of interacting – I think it’s completely possible to manage them sanely, and being offline for a certain amount of time will always be a healthy thing to do, but just setting online interactions aside as some falsely deceiving or confusing part of life isn’t going to work. They’re here to stay, so relationship issues are more a question of how to manage our own emotions and communications than a question of avoiding all online contact.

I think this is reasonably normal crushy behaviour, but that advances in technology have enabled it to be channeled into new manifestations or symptoms of crushiness, that we – as a society in general – probably haven’t been able to properly mythologise & integrate into the broader stories we tell ourselves about romantic love.

Old version: waiting endlessly near the landline, hoping for a call; a stock-standard meme that we’d all be familiar with.

New version: what you described, along with whatever kind of snooping might be possible – a new-technology meme; not necessarily stalking, but if your crush has given you access to their livejournal or facebook or told you who they are on metafilter, then hey – that stuff’s right in front of you & it’s hard not to be tempted into reading it.

http://ask.metafilter.com/114010/How-do-I-curb-obsessive-hypothetical-relationship-thoughts

classic sexual selection can’t account for these strange carnal habits

According to Roughgarden, classic sexual selection can’t account for these strange carnal habits. After all, Darwin imagined sex as a relatively straightforward transaction. Males compete for females. Evolutionary success is defined by the quantity of offspring. Thus, any distractions from the business of making babies—distractions like homosexuality, masturbation, etc.—are precious wastes of fluids. You’d think by now, several hundred million years after sex began, nature would have done away with such inefficiencies, and males and females would only act to maximize rates of sexual reproduction.

But the opposite has happened. Instead of copulation becoming more functional and straightforward, it has only gotten weirder as species have evolved—more sodomy and other frivolous pleasures that are useless for propagating the species. The more socially complex the animal, the more sexual “deviance” it exhibits. Look at primates: Compared to our closest relatives, contemporary, Westernized Homo sapiens are the staid ones.

So how might homosexuality be good for us? Any concept of sexual selection that emphasizes the selfish propagation of genes and sperm won’t be able to account for the abundance of non-heterosexual sex. All those gay penguins and persons will remain inexplicable. However, if one looks at homosexuality from the perspective of a community, one can begin to see why nature might foster a variety of sexual interactions.

According to Roughgarden, gayness is a necessary side effect of getting along. Homosexuality evolved in tandem with vertebrate societies, in which a motley group of individuals has to either live together or die alone. In fact, Roughgarden even argues that homosexuality is a defining feature of advanced animal communities, which require communal bonds in order to function. “The more complex and sophisticated a social system is,” she writes, “the more likely it is to have homosexuality intermixed with heterosexuality.”

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_gay_animal_kingdom/

Sandboarding in the Sahara

peekaboo