One of the things I realized early on in my working life is that what follows after the first few lines of an email or other communication rarely registers in the consciousness of people, although they may have ‘read’ it in the sense that their eyes scanned over it. So you need to make the most important point right at the start.
This cartoon captures it exactly.
(Baldo)
My husband suffers from hearing loss that is making it increasingly difficult for him to communicate over a voice connection. (Yes, I know there is technology that can help, but he’s still in denial that he really, really needs some help.) As this has gradually become a problem, he relies more and more on email, running squarely into the problem shown by that wonderful cartoon.
And so, I listen to periodic rants about how someone didn’t read down to paragraph 4 on topic three. Suggestions for sending one email per topic, using bullet points, and so forth are all met with growls. Lately I’ve decided that he needs to figure this out on his own, and let it go.