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Should a person's response to an electronic message go before a
relevant snippet of the message or after?
It may not surprise you to learn that among those who had opinions on
the question, opinion was almost evenly divided:
Six people felt that the response should go after the snippet,
primarily to establish a context. As Jim noted, however, this strategy
also encourages pruning of the original message.
Five people felt that the response should go BEFORE the snippet, so you
don't have to wade through a lengthy message you've seen before.
Opinion was, however, unanimous on one point: people should quote as
little of the original message as possible.
Other than noting that universal plea for brevity, I'll skip the
subject of responses to multiple parts of a posting; there
doesn't seem to be a lot of controversy there.
What am * I * going to do? [press Delete now if you don't give a rip]
I think I'll prune down the original message to a phrase that
summarizes the idea that made me want to respond, and follow that with
my response.
Thanks for your help.
Arthur Comings
GeoQuest
Corte Madera, California
atc -at- corte-madera -dot- geoquest -dot- slb -dot- com
