Subjected to torture
This tip holds good whether you’re writing an email or posting on a forum or Usenet board.
Make sure that the subject of your message summarises the message – in other words, it gives the reader a good idea of what the message is about.
Subjects with one word are generally more cryptic than your reader will understand. This is fine if it’s just a bit of chat and you want to intrigue your reader. But if you’re asking for information, and particularly if you’re asking for help, you’re likely to find that the less information you convey in your subject, the less people are inclined to spend the time finding out what it is you want help with.
Subject titles such as “Help!” or even “Please help!” are particularly uninformative, and waste the time of anyone who bothers to read the message, only to find that it’s about something they know nothing about and have no interest in.
The same goes for subject titles which simply repeat or rehash the title of the forum or forum category they’re posted in. That’s just sheer laziness, as well as stating the bleeding obvious – if the forum category is “Breadmaking”, a subject title “Making bread” conveys absolutely no new information at all.
If you’re asking for help, you should always – and that means always – make it clear in your title what you need help with. If you don’t make that small effort, then don’t be surprised if others aren’t willing to expend considerably more effort in reading your message – and simply click away.
Let’s look at a few examples. Say we’re looking at a forum about baking:
Good subject titles look something like:
- Shortbread – can you use marge instead of butter?
- How long does pastry keep in the fridge?
- Are domestic food processor dough hooks any good?
Less good would be:
- Shortbread
- Keeping pastry
- Dough hooks
Worst of all would be:
- Help
(and its many variants: Can you help?, Help needed, Help wanted, Please help!, etc…) - Problem
- Anything which simply repeats the title of the forum or forum category it’s posted in
- Hello
- My Aunt Betty is coming to visit
(or anything else which gives no clue about what you’re asking. Remember, keep it relevant, not hatstand.)
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