Verbal or written, communication has some silent rules worthy of attention. Many times we think we communicate when in actual sense we don’t.

If you can, make your message as short and simple as possible because the attention span of most people is very short, particularly if you don’t have the skill to retain their attention in the first few lines.

Desirable as it is to make your message as precise as possible, your message may also be short and still not communicate if it fails the simple rules test. If you use the right words and emotional connection, your message can be fairly long and well digested.

Three major components sum up your message: introduction; body and conclusion. All three are important but your introduction determines if your reader or listener will have the patience to get to the other two.

Ability to communicate with simple and comprehensible language is a skill worth learning. Many fail this test in a bid to impress their readers or listeners with vocabularies.

If you are gifted in wordings, you may be able to write long messages with the use of punctuation marks and conjunctions to separate your sentences. The risk is when your message loses meaning to your reader as s/he struggles to put the sentences together. As much as possible, write short and clear sentences.

Your parting words leave a lasting impression in the mind of your reader or listener. Most times we wonder why our messages are not actionable. It is because the conclusion does not give a call to action. Keep it short and simple.

©️Akin Oluwadare Jnr
05 February 2024