You will be able to rewrite real messages so the point comes first, and compare how the old and new versions read.
Set aside twenty minutes. Open your sent folder and your chat app, and ask one colleague to give you five minutes at the end. You'll need three real messages you sent at work in the last month, and you'll move the main point of each one to the top.
Putting the point first is easy to read about but harder to do to your own writing. Your own messages make sense to you because you know what you meant, so a buried request doesn't look buried when you read it back. To get past that, you mark the point in each message on purpose, and then you get a second opinion from someone who reads the messages cold.
Choose one email, one chat message and one longer document, such as a report, proposal, handover note or set of meeting minutes. Each should have asked for something or reached a conclusion. A message that only said "thanks" has no point to move, so it isn't a good choice.
Messages that got a slow reply, a confused reply or a "can we discuss?" are the most useful to pick, because the structure of those messages has probably already cost you something.
The example here follows Mei Ling (an invented example), a junior accountant at an audit firm in Tanjong Pagar during the busy season. Her three messages are an email to a client, Mr Ravi, a chat message to her senior, Jason, and a page of notes on the revenue cycle.
The point is the sentence that says what you wanted: the request, the decision you needed, or the conclusion you reached. In each original, highlight that sentence and count which sentence number it is. Be honest when you mark it. If the request is split across two sentences in different paragraphs, mark both. If you can't find a clear request at all, write down in one sentence what you wanted, because a reader can't act on a request you never quite made and you need to know when this has happened.
Mei Ling's email to Mr Ravi opens with a greeting and "hope you are well". It mentions their meeting last week and says fieldwork on the revenue cycle has started. It explains that the team checked the sales listing he sent on 3 March against the invoices on the shared drive, and that most items were fine. Next it says 14 December invoices could not be found, mostly for the Johor customer. Only after all of that does it ask whether he or his team can upload them by this Friday. It then adds that otherwise fieldwork may need to be extended, and closes with thanks. When she marks it, the request is in sentence six, the deadline is in that same sentence, and the consequence comes after it.
Her chat message to Jason said only "are you free?". She sent her real question, about which materiality figure to use, twenty minutes later as a follow-up.
In her notes on the revenue cycle, her conclusion that two controls had failed was at the end of page one.
If your workplace expects a greeting, keep it, and keep the courtesy too. What changes is the order: the request or conclusion goes in the first two lines, and the reasons go below it.
For the email and the chat message, use the test from lesson 1.1: could someone who stopped after two sentences tell what you want, from whom and by when? For the longer document, use the structure from lesson 1.2, with one governing point on top, two or three reasons, and the detail grouped under each reason.
Mei Ling's rewritten email starts with a greeting. The first line asks whether Mr Ravi's team could upload the 14 December invoices to the shared drive by this Friday. The reason follows: the team can't find them, and without them fieldwork would run into next week. After that come the details. The invoices are mostly for the Johor customer, the list is attached, and the rest of the sales listing matched. The email closes with thanks. It is shorter than the original, and Mr Ravi can see from the first line what is needed and by when. The consequence of missing the deadline now sits near the top, which gives him a reason to act now.
Her new chat message asks Jason, for the Ravi client, whether to use the S$50,000 planning materiality (an invented figure) or the revised figure from last week. Jason can answer it in one word, and the message adds that she needs the answer to finish the sampling today.
Her notes now open with the conclusion that two controls had failed, and then give one paragraph to each failed control.
Ask a colleague who doesn't know the background. Someone without the context reads the way a busy recipient does. Show them the before and after versions of one message without telling them which is which. Ask which one they would act on faster and why, then write their reason next to the message.
Sometimes their reason confirms the new structure, and sometimes it points to a different problem, such as a missing deadline or a request that is still vague. Mei Ling's colleague noticed that her first rewrite of the email said "this week" instead of "this Friday", so she corrected it to "this Friday" rather than leave Mr Ravi to guess the deadline.
You should now have three before-and-after pairs, with the point highlighted in both versions of each, and your colleague's comment on one pair. Lay the three pairs side by side. Most people find the same habit in all three messages, often a long run-up before the request or a missing deadline. Once you can name your own habit, you know what to look for each time you write, and spotting it is the most useful result of the exercise.
In the activity below, describe that habit as it shows up in each of your three messages.
Write before and after versions of three of your messages. Under each pair, write one sentence on what you changed.
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