How and Why You Should Down-edit Your Emails

Most onliners have never heard of down-editing. Yet, down-editing your email is a necessary skill that clarifies your communications and helps avoid misunderstandings.

In addition, responding point by point to those who email you shows consideration for their time and your command of technology. This skill is developed over time—by doing.

Clarity in Your Communications

Down-editing your personal email replies can offer several benefits:

Clarity: By condensing your message, you ensure the recipient understands your points clearly and easily. Removing unnecessary words and sentences helps to avoid confusion and ensures that your main message comes across effectively.
Efficiency: Writing concise emails saves time for both you and the recipient. It reduces the time spent reading and processing the email, leading to faster response times and increased productivity.
Professionalism: Clear and concise communication reflects positively on your professionalism. It shows that you respect the recipient’s time and value effective communication, which can enhance your reputation in professional settings.
Attention: In today’s fast-paced digital world, people often skim through emails rather than reading them thoroughly. Down-editing your emails increases the likelihood that your key points will be noticed and understood, even by those quickly scanning their inbox.
Reduced Miscommunication: Long-winded emails can lead to misinterpretation or misunderstanding of your intended message. By editing your emails down to the essentials, you reduce the chances of miscommunication and ensure that your message is received as intended.
Mobile-Friendly: Many people check their emails on mobile devices with limited screen space. Concise emails are easier to read and navigate on smaller screens, making them more user-friendly for recipients accessing emails on mobile devices.
Increased Engagement: People are likelier to engage with concise and to-the-point emails. By down-editing your emails, you increase the chances of recipients reading your entire message and taking the desired action, whether responding to a question, providing feedback, or taking another specified action.

Become a Better Communicator

By editing your email correctly, you avoid misunderstandings by replying point-by-point. In addition, you leave no room for surmising because the other side knows what portion of their email your response applies to.

Since most onliners are anemic in this area, you will shine by making these simple efforts! (Plus, it will help you shine in your professional email communications.) The more you down-edit, the more it will become a natural habit that can also contribute to your work or professional communications.

The first thing to remember is never just to hit Reply and start typing. This is known as top-posting and is not conducive to communication clarity.

Once you hit Reply and type a courteous greeting, you should remove any unnecessary part of the email to clarify the ongoing conversation. This includes email headers (all that server and routing info at the top of some emails) and signature files.

Down-editing Tips

Here are some additional quick tips to help you on your way!

The best way to edit correctly is to hold your left mouse button down, drag it over the text you want to remove, and then hit delete.
Hit your enter key twice to put a line space between where you will type your response and the text you are replying to above. Then, type your comments as they relate to the content above.
Continue to do the same as the email continues. Remove what doesn’t matter, leave what does, hit enter twice, and type your reply.
After removing a substantial amount of text, I type “(snip)” after a significant deletion. This lets the other party know that I read that paragraph or portion of the text but that I have no comments specifically related to that area of the email or that none are required.
When you start adding all the reply line brackets and back-and-forth>>>>s, email becomes very difficult to follow. At that point, the direction of the conversation probably doesn’t match the original SUBJECT: field. When this happens, make a habit of starting a new email and updating the SUBJECT: field. This helps to avoid misunderstandings due to all the back-and-forth.

Worth the Effort

Integrating these steps when replying to emails can help keep your conversations on track and make them more accessible for all to read. Besides, by setting a good example, others can learn from you, which is how most online learn new things.

Down-editing your personal email replies can lead to clearer communication, increased efficiency, and a more favorable impression on recipients. This valuable skill can benefit you and your correspondents in various personal and professional contexts.

In my book, that’s as good a reason to start down-editing your emails. Why not start today?