[3-minute read]
How often has someone forwarded you a long email chain with the words “See below” stuck to the top? It’s maddening! What precisely in the seven emails below are you supposed to be seeing? When people forward an email chain with the words see below at the top, they run many risks: not achieving their goal, offending the recipient, and exposing confidential information.
Why is it so wrong to write see below?
- Your recipient is unlikely to know what part of below you mean for her to see. She will make her best guess, but she may home in on some point that was not what you intended. Then your whole message goes awry.
- Your message shows a disregard for your recipient’s time. By writing see below, you put the burden on the reader to pore through the tedious email chain, sift out extraneous information, and maybe, maybe figure out what you had in mind with the words see below. As the writer, you are responsible for reading the whole chain and telling your reader what matters.
- You may unintentionally disclose confidential information. It’s easy to be cavalier when forwarding an email chain. With a sweeping see below, you may send a slew of information. But what if somewhere in that chain there lurks a piece of confidential or embarrassing information? By rushing to forward the whole chain, you may not realize what you are sending. Then when the reader does see below, she may see something that should have remained unseen.
What should you do instead?
If you need to forward a series of emails to a colleague or client, you can do so effectively by doing one or more of the following:
- Be specific about what you want the reader to see. Write See comment below regarding 2020 property tax increase or See below about … whatever specific detail you wanted the reader to focus on. If you want your reader to cast a broader focus, then write See the discussion of HR policy changes in the emails below. Do we need to change ours? or some other substantive guidance about why you have forwarded this chain.
- Highlight the passages in the email chain that you want the recipient to read. This way, she can go directly to the relevant information and not waste time on text that does not matter.
- Write a bulleted summary of the email chain and place it at the top of your email. This takes the burden off the recipient to read through the whole chain. She can go straight to the topics that interest her.
What is worse than See below?
As offensive as it can be to receive a forward with the message See below, there is something worse.
I taught an email training for managers of a public utility last year. When we discussed the importance of forwarding email responsibly, a senior manager said that he routinely forwarded email chains to his team with only the words Please handle at the top.
A junior manager in the group was a former team member of this person. He practically leaped up from his seat and exclaimed, “We never knew what you meant by that! We used to read through it over and over to try to figure out what we were supposed to do.” The senior manager thought he was saving time by writing Please handle. In reality, he was undermining his team’s productivity and morale.
So even if you can’t stop yourself from writing See below, I hope you will draw the line at Please handle.
©2020 Elizabeth Danziger All rights reserved
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Worktalk prepares teams to write clearly and confidently amid the pressures of constant communication. Our trainings and webinars equip individuals with the mindset and tactics to strengthen credibility, increase influence, and generate new possibilities.
If you’re wondering how Worktalk might make a difference in your organization, call Liz Danziger at 310.396.8303 or email lizd@worktalk.com.