Information Shares, Requests, and Replies
Ask any professional what kinds of messages they spend the majority of their sit-down time at a computer writing and responding to. They will likely tell you that they’re requesting information or action and replying to those with answers or acknowledgements. Though you’ve probably written many of these yourself, you may need to polish your style and organization to meet a professional standard. After all, the quality of the responses you get or can give crucially depends on the quality of the questions you ask or are asked. Let’s look at several such scenarios in detail.
Information Shares
Perhaps the simplest and most common routine message type is where the sender offers up information that helps the receiver.
Table: Outline for Information Shares
| Outline | Content | Example Message |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Opening | Main point of information | Hi Karin,
I just saw a CFP for a new funding opportunity you can apply for via the Ministry of Agriculture. |
| 2. Body | Information context and further details | Find it on the Greenbelt Fund’s Local Food Literacy Grant Stream page. If you haven’t already been doing this, you should also check out the Ministry’s general page on Funding Programs and Support to connect with any other grants etc. relevant to the good work you do. |
| 3. Closing | Action regarding the information | It looks like the deadline for proposals is at the end of the week, though, so you might want to get on it right away.
Good luck! Shradha |
Notice here how the writer made the reader’s job especially easy by providing links to the recommended webpages using the hyperlinking feature in their email.
Replies to such information shares involve either a quick and concise thank-you message or carry the conversation on if it’s part of an ongoing project, initiative, or conversation. Recall that you should change the email subject line as the topic evolves. Information shares to a large group, such as a departmental memo to 60 employees, don’t usually require acknowledgement. If everyone wrote the sender just to say thanks, the barrage of reply notifications would frustrate them as they try to carry on their work while sorting out replies with valuable information from mere acknowledgments. Only respond if you have valuable information to share with all the recipients or just the sender.
Information or Action Requests
Managers, clients, and coworkers alike send and receive requests for information and action all day. Because these provide the recipient with direction on what to do, the information that comes back or action that results from such requests can only be as good as the instructions given. Such messages must therefore be well organized and clear about expectations, opening directly with a clearly stated general request—unless you anticipate resistance to the request—and proceeding with background and more detailed instruction if necessary as we see below.
Table: Outline for Direct Info