Say the point first, then explain it

You will be able to state the conclusion or request of any message in its first two sentences.

Put your main point, request or recommendation in the first sentence of a work message, and give the background after it. Most people read the first few lines of a long work email, decide whether it needs them, and move on, so a request placed deep in an email often gets missed or found late.

Picture your ask sitting in the fourth paragraph. Your reader has a meeting in five minutes, skims the top, sees background, and closes the email. They may find your request two days late, after the moment for it has passed.

School essays and university reports teach you to build up to the point: background, then method, then discussion, with the conclusion last. That order suits a marker, who has to read every word. It suits work badly, because people at work have full inboxes, back-to-back meetings and chat messages arriving on their phones all day.

The rule for work writing is bottom line up front (BLUF), which comes from US military writing. You state the conclusion, recommendation or request first, then give the supporting background. Your reader learns what you want in the first sentence and decides how much of the rest to read.

Take a message about choosing a vendor, written in school order. It says you met the vendors on Tuesday. It says you got three quotes and two of them were over budget. It says the third quote, from the smaller firm, was within budget, but the firm needs a deposit by Friday. It says finance takes two days to process a payment. Only at the end does it ask your manager to approve the deposit today.

The BLUF version reads: "Could you approve the deposit to the smaller vendor today? They need it by Friday, and finance takes two days to process a payment. Theirs is the only one of the three quotes within budget. Details below." It has the same facts and roughly the same length as the school version. It gets a faster reply because the reader knows the ask and its urgency in one sentence.

BLUF does not mean being blunt or dropping courtesy. A greeting at the start and thanks at the end are still fine. The rule is that the first real sentence carries the point. BLUF also does not mean leaving out your reasons. They come second, for readers who want them, and a reader who trusts you can stop early.

The same rule works when you speak. If your manager asks how the report is going, a good answer is "It's on track for Thursday, with one risk around data from the regional team." A status answer gives the state and any risk. Your manager does not need a tour of everything you did that week. In a meeting, open with your proposal, for example "I'm proposing we delay the launch by two weeks," and then give your reasons. With a long run-up, people stop listening before you reach the point.

Two things make this harder than it sounds. The first is that you have to know your point before you send. Many long messages are long because the writer worked out their thinking while typing. That is acceptable in a draft. Before you send, find the sentence that matters, move it to the top so it is the first real sentence after any greeting, and put the reasons and background after it.

The second is nerves. With bad news or an awkward request, people tend to bury the point under background. Burying bad news rarely softens it. It mostly makes the reader work harder to find it, and readers notice when that happens.

Before you send anything, run a two-sentence test. If your reader stopped after two sentences, would they know what you want, from whom, and by when? If they would not, rewrite the opening.

BLUF matters more in Singapore workplaces, where many messages are read in a second or third language, or on a phone between meetings. Putting the point first helps those readers most, because they get what you need before the long sentences start. The next lesson shows how to organise longer messages, such as reports and proposals, so the point sits on top and every reason supports it.

Your task: find the last three long messages you sent at work. For each one, underline the sentence that says what you wanted. Then rewrite the opening two sentences so that sentence comes first.

Find the last three long messages you sent at work. Rewrite the first two sentences of each so the request or conclusion comes first.

Course

• Communicate at work: writing, speaking and meetings