Where does the question go in a message?

September 26, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Last month I talked about how helpful it can be for the reader when the writer of a message asks a question. With a question mark.

And I have explained before about how important it is to put information where the reader is most likely to look. Based on the research about how people read.

So, this month I’ve been explaining where to put the question in the body of a message. Does it go first? Last? Somewhere in the middle?

Well, it doesn’t go in the middle. Usually. Because the middle is for details, not for requests.

Sometimes the question goes first. Sometimes it goes last. It depends!

Which sounds like a terrible answer. Except there are clear guidelines for when to put it at the beginning and when to put it at the end.

Here’s the simple way to decide where the question goes:

Does the person you are writing to expect your message or not?

If they expect it, then the question goes first.

Keep in mind that they could expect your message because you write to them a lot. They might be your coworker or a vendor or a customer you do a lot of work for. In any event, they know who you are and hear from you on different topics regularly. They will open your message and the first thing they need to know is “what do you need from me now?”.

They could also expect your message because it is their job to handle messages like these. For example, it might be the accounts payable email address at an organization. You are sending an invoice to them for payment. They might not know you or the project or have any information about the invoice, but it is definitely their job to process the invoice and send you the money. Your message is not strange to them; it’s the normal course of their business day.

If either of those things is true–you write to them often or you are writing to them about something that is definitely their job–then you can and should put the question first.

Here’s what that would look like in an example:

Hi Silvia,

What is the most recent transaction paid by Awilix?

Their contract requires a payment every 30 days. I emailed a reminder to them about the upcoming payment. They responded that they had already paid it.

Thanks for helping me confirm whether they are on track,

Anton

If, on the other hand, the other person does NOT expect your message, then the question goes last.

Keep in mind that it might be a normal message for YOU to send out to people, but you know that the person you are sending it to doesn’t know who you are. Or they don’t think they’re going to get a message like this one.

Think about sending an invoice. You’re working with a client and you have 1-2 contacts, but when you ask where you should send the invoice, they give you the email address of someone you’ve never met let alone heard of before. You don’t know who they are, what their job is, or if they have any idea who you are.

So, you are going to start your message with context: I’m working on this job with these people who said to send the email to you. And then you are going to end with the question: Would you be able to process this invoice for payment by October 30? The question goes at the end because the other person probably needs a bit more context before understanding the question.

In this case, if you led with the question and asked for money, the reader would probably feel immediately aggressive about what you’ve written because WHO ARE YOU? WHAT IS THIS? WHY SHOULD I PAY YOU MONEY? That stuff is a waste of time when you already know the person. But it’s very important when you don’t know them

Here’s what the question at the end look like in an example:

Hi Julian,

Our client Awilix asserts that they have completed the terms of their contract. According to Sophia in accounting, Awilix has made 8 payments of $2947 every 30 days since January 12, 2026.

Would you be able to find their original contract with the payment schedule? I have searched in the shared drive, but nothing comes up. Was Awilix operating under a different name when the contract originated? I figured you might remember or have access to that information since you are listed as the previous client manager.

Warmly,

Anton

Big picture: the goal with asking a question–with a question mark–is to make sure that the reader sees your request, knows they have to respond, and feels mostly good about the conversation.

The question should either be the first sentence after the greeting, no context or preamble, if the reader expects to hear from you or expects to get this kind of question. Or the question should be the last sentence in its own paragraph after white space, following from the context explanation, when the reader does not expect to hear from you or doesn’t usually get this type of question.

How to ask so that people can follow through

August 14, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Asking questions is important in our writing at work. We are typically writing messages in order to get other people to do something. Whether it’s update a client’s file or sign a contract or schedule a meeting, there’s something that we want to happen in the real world as a result of our message.

Often, we write messages where the ask is framed as an I-statement:

I was wondering if you had updated the client file yet.

I was checking to see if we could meet on Tuesday at 2pm.

I was hoping you’d get that contract back to me by Friday.

All of those sentences have an ask, but the ask is hard to see if it were inside of a bigger message and it’s framed from the “I” point of view, so the reader is more likely to skim it.

What is AI writing good for?

July 16, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Right now, AI writing assistance is popping up in everything we use. Do you want help writing that email? That text message? Taking notes in that meeting? Writing that insta post?

Personally, I reject almost all of it. Because I WILL LET AI KNOW WHEN I NEED IT. I don’t want it to prompt me.

But I know plenty of people are thinking, “Well, as long as it offered, I’d rather let it than do it myself.” And that’s valid too.

The difficulty is that AI looks like it can do a lot for us, but that impression of easy confidence is part of its programming. I’ve had AI offer to make me a powerpoint and then say, “Oh, sorry, looks like I can’t do that.” Well then why did you offer?

AI offers because it doesn’t know its limits. It doesn’t know what its capable of. In fact, it doesn’t know anything.

That’s not how it works. It doesn’t read. It doesn’t write. It doesn’t know or think or consider or feel or value or determine. AI doesn’t think.

It predicts.

We're talking about "you" and how to not make it weird

June 11, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Last month I wrote about how to use “I” effectively, so maybe you’re wondering “Hmmm, if there are rules about “I”, are there rules about “you”, too?

The answer is…sort of.

The main goal with “you” is to use it more. Use it at least as much as “I”. But try to use it *more* than “I”.

Because how we use “I” and “you” in writing is a lot like how we make eye contact or put down our phones when we are with someone in person.

As I’ve discussed before, the language we use when we are speaking to each other (especially in person, but also over the phone or on a video call) is different from the language we use when we are writing.

What I mean is that our spoken language comes along with body language. So, people can hear how we mean something (that’s tone–the face and sound and body that comes along with the words…which is why writing tends to sound mean..er). They can see how we mean it on our faces. They are getting the interpretation along with the words.

But writing is just the words.

How do you use the word "I" in your writing at work?

May 22, 2026 by Jenny Morse

In April, I mentioned 5 tips for revising anything you draft with AI.

One tip was to edit the use of "I".

AI writing is generated based on patterns. Patterns that we humans created.

But a lot of the patterns in our writing at work are the result of language strategies that don't really work. Business communication has prioritized jargon, empty politeness, and archaic sentence structures that get passed down like old heirlooms ("I'm writing you because", anyone? We know you are writing! We are reading it!)

And those old, not-so-effective patterns get recreated in AI writing when you ask it to draft an email for you.

Which is why I recommend my professionals practice using "I" in particular ways and why I suggested last month that we make sure to edit AI writing for its use of "I", so that the word is serving our communication in the best ways possible--and not just because that's how people have always said whatever-the-thing-is at work.

5 Things to Change in AI Writing

April 24, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Last month, I talked about about where AI writing can be helpful and where your own voice matters more. That big overview is helpful for determining how we can best use AI to support the writing that we do at work.

AI writing can look clear, complete, and competent. But the reality is that AI writing feels “weird” or “off” to many people if it doesn’t have a relatable point of view.

Humans use a lot of things to determine whether people are trustworthy. In person, we evaluate in a glance someone’s

Clothing
Cleanliness
Smile
Handshake
Eye contact
Posture
Even where they are standing!

When we are writing, none of those techniques for evaluating a person work.

AI can write for you. But please don't let it.

March 19, 2026 by Jenny Morse

I’ve spent the last month thinking about writing with AI. I’ve given 3 presentations on it. One presentation was a brief 5 minutes about how important it is to preserve your unique voice when you are using AI to help you write. The other presentations combined that advocacy with suggestions for strong prompts, exercises for experimenting with the tools, and guidelines for revision. And throughout all of this, I have used AI.

The caveat for me is that I use it to see what will happen and then I fight with it about what it does.

For example, I asked it’s opinion on a title for a presentation. Instead of giving me an analysis, it gave me suggestions. I clarified that I wasn’t looking for suggestions. It apologized, and gave me the analysis I was looking for.

As it produced it’s analysis, it used words like “I” to refer to itself and “you” to refer to me, as if we were two humans having a conversation. I’ve called it out on this before, and it says that “I” and “you” are just placeholders for positions in a conversation: speaker and listener. Which is true. And also, it’s a referent to a self that speaks or writes. And AI isn’t a self. And doesn’t speak. And doesn’t write. An AI is a machine that replicates patterns and generates output in response to inputs.

How to build trust in an email? Purpose first. Connection last.

February 13, 2026 by Jenny Morse

So many of us write using the conventions that stem from face-to-face or in-person communication. When a person is standing in front of you, social conventions say that you ask about that person before proceeding to business. We walk up to a coworker and say “Hey, do you have a sec?” or “How’s your day going?” and after we’ve exchanged a little personal information, we move on to business.

This makes sense because the person is standing in front of us or is on the phone. Our convention of having a quick lead-in to work shows respect for the human person in their human body in front of us.

But writing doesn’t have a body. We read messages from other people while sitting at our computers. There isn’t a body in front of us that we need to acknowledge in the same way.

How to write for how smart humans process tasks

January 22, 2026 by Jenny Morse

Whenever I’m training or presenting to a group on techniques for writing effective messages at work, the question always comes up: “But how do I get people to read?”

The truth–as many of us learn in therapy–is that you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself.

I can’t make other people read your messages. And I can’t make AI provide better summaries of your messages.

Here’s what I can do: teach you how to write messages that get read by humans and AI summary tools alike.

Why we have office jargon--and why we may not want to use it

December 11, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Office jargon or corporate speak exists for a reason–actually several reasons.

One reason for it is that people who are doing the same things all the time typically develop a shorthand for talking about things they all know and understand. If you are in the same field or work in the same office, it’s faster and more precise to say “cleat” than “the wooden thing that holds up the closet pole so it can support the weight of all my clothes”. So, people who have a lot of overlapping knowledge and are working in the same context can speak or write specifics more quickly and effectively through jargon.

How to win at work: persuasion (light manipulation?) for good ends

November 20, 2025 by Jenny Morse

When I was a college professor, I taught persuasive business writing techniques to my undergrads. Every once in a while, someone would ask me, “What is the difference between persuasion and manipulation?” We would laugh a little bit about it and then I would answer like this:

“Manipulation is getting someone to do something that only helps you. Persuasion is getting someone to do something that helps both of you or only them.”

I still think that is a key difference.

If you are using the techniques to only serve yourself, then that’s manipulative.

But if you genuinely believe that the outcome will serve the person or serve others besides yourself (you can benefit, too, but you are not the sole person who benefits), then that’s persuasive.

The reality is that the techniques for getting humans to take action are all pretty similar. It’s the outcome that changes whether the techniques are used for good or evil.

With all that in mind, a little persuasion is often necessary at work. Our jobs rely on other people following through on their responsibilities so that we can all keep the system churning out whatever product or service our organizations provide. And, yes, there are lots of people who do their jobs, and do them well, because they are internally motivated to be responsible, competent, even brilliant workers.

Positivity in both our writing and how we read at work!

October 28, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Why be positive in our communication at work?

Let’s start with the fact that as much as we may love our jobs, work can be tedious. Sometimes you have to work with folks who drive you nuts. Other times, you may have a challenge with a boss or a customer. And some days, you just don’t want to do the same thing that you did yesterday or last week.

Most of us have to work for one reason or another. And we’ve chosen our career paths as the way that we’d prefer to earn a living because there were parts of it that we enjoyed. But work is work. Which means that it is not always fun.

Ok, so because work is something we kinda have to do rather than something we are always excited and happy to be doing, maintaining a positive attitude is important just to keep us all sane. The more positive we can be about work, the better we’ll feel about doing it.

But I’m not a mood coach.

The reason I’m writing about this is because writing has this thing called the negativity effect.

When should you write an email and when should you schedule a meeting

September 30, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Writing isn’t good for everything. I’m a writer. I know.

We have so many different forms of communication now: not just email, phone, text, and in person. Those may be the 4 basic ones, but that doesn’t include all the other chat messages on every app everywhere. I communicate with my friends in my writers group through text, email, and the Meetup chat, as well as several google docs that I recently set up that allow for commenting.

I work with clients through email, phone, text, and LinkedIn messages, as well as my online course platform which has its own email, chat, discussion threads and other functions.

Even my friends communicate with me through phone, email, text messages, and voice messages on regular text and Whatsapp, so there’s a million different methods for them to get in touch with me. Oh, and I forget Instagram both forwarding things and messaging (and Facebook, etc).

Once upon a time, your choices were to send a letter or talk to them in person. Sometimes I long for those times when communication was simpler because it was so hard.

Now it’s too easy.

How to write a cover letter (with and without ChatGPT)

September 05, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Cover letters are a job application document that accomplishes two things: are you a person I want to work with? And can you write?

Those are the two questions anyone reviewing your cover letter is asking themselves.

Like all documents, cover letters have standards and constraints. They are expected to be formatted as a letter (your info top, then date, then their address, greeting, body–most of the doc, closing, signature, typed name)

(If you don’t know what a letter is, it’s basically what we used to send through the mail before there was email.)

What I hear most from job applicants is “Why are we still writing these things?” And that’s fair.

But the reason we are still writing them is because people still need a way of deciding who to interview, and companies still need people who have basic communication skills–you will need to write and communicate with your coworkers at least.

Using story structure to make work memorable

July 23, 2025 by Jenny Morse

A story about how I became a communication consultant

Once upon a time, I went to a barbecue that changed my life. I had just finished my PhD in English and gotten hired to teach Business Writing in the business school at Colorado State University. I had never taught Business Writing before. I had taught creative writing, poetry, non-fiction, introductory composition, advanced composition, academic writing, and a few other courses delivered by English departments across higher ed institutions. I applied for the business writing job on a bit of a whim. And honestly, I was surprised when they hired me. But the main person doing the hiring was a former English major and a lawyer who had found himself working in the business school, too, a few decades before me.

The barbecue was at the home of that gentleman who had hired me. I didn’t want to go. I was scared. There were a lot of people to meet, which can be overwhelming for an introvert, and I only knew one person–the host who had hired me. But I made myself get dressed up and go over there where I met not only my colleagues at the business school, but also the gentleman’s wife who had presented herself as a dog trainer, but turned out to be much more.

Toward the end of the barbecue, she and I were talking about all kinds of things. We really connected! And as I was leaving, she said, “Would you be interested in doing some consulting?” And I, not one to reject any opportunity, said, “Sure, what kind?” And she then told me how she had been teaching business writing classes through an organization in Denver called Employers Council for the last 25 years, but she was ready to retire and was looking for someone to replace her.

That person was me.

Consulting allowed me to buy a house and travel and eventually focus entirely on my business and leave the day to day of the university. I wouldn’t have anything in my life today if I hadn’t met that woman at that barbecue.

How stories work

And that’s the story of how I became a person who teaches other people how to communicate at work!

See, it’s not the whole story of who I am or my childhood or all the things I have ever done and cared about. A story is a framework. A shape. It starts at a particular point and ends at another with some complication along the way. But it can’t contain everything. The way it works is by giving some details and filtering out others.

What do you remember from my story? What stands out to you? If you had to retell it to someone else, what would you say?

I’m guessing your summary would be something like this:

Jenny went to a barbecue that she didn’t want to go to and met a lady who helped her get into consulting, which changed her life by giving her the extra money to buy a house.

And that summary would be enough! You would have retained the entire point of the story in your one sentence summary!

But if I had just said that–just that one sentence–you probably wouldn’t remember anything. Your summary would be something like “Jenny met a lady who changed her life or something.”

When we communicate, there’s a gap between the content the writer or speaker—called the “sender”--shares and what the audience retains. The reader/listener–called the “receiver”--can’t comprehend 100% of what the sender says. The gap is because the receiver has their own thoughts and experiences that interact with the content being sent. The receiver doesn’t read or listen to every word because some of those words will trigger thoughts in the receiver’s brain. They will follow those thoughts for a second or a few minutes or maybe longer before coming back and re-engaging with the sender’s content. If the content is written, the receiver may go back and read what they zoned out on. But they might not. And if the receiver is listening, then the content may be lost forever.

Since no message will ever be exchanged at 100%, the goal is to have the receiver grasp maybe 85% of the message content.

That means the sender will *always* have to send more content than the receiver will get. The email will be longer than what gets read. The presentation will be longer than what the participants retain.

But the way that we get to that 85% is by presenting content as a story so that the receiver’s brain can hold on to the most valuable information.

The key features of a story are that it starts at a relevant moment, just before the important stuff happens.

For fairy tales, we use the phrase “Once upon a time”, but at work, we might point to a particular day, project, or person:

“This one time”

“While I was working on x”

“Person contacted me and…”

These kinds of phrases signal the beginning of a story because they locate us in time, place, or in relation to a person or situation. Essentially, they mark the moment before something happened.

Choosing this moment is critical. No one wants a story that starts with “When I was born” because that’s going back waaaaay too far in most cases, and is most likely totally irrelevant to work.

If the moment is too far before the action, people get bored.

But you also have to make sure that the starting moment provides enough details–who is involved, what are you working on, what is happening in the world (stories set in 2025 are much different than those set in 2000 which are much different than those set in 1975–just in terms of phones let alone other world changes)--so that the action will make sense.

And also, you can’t have so many details that your receiver zones out.

In some stories it will be relevant that the floor was carpeted. In other stories, it won’t be relevant at all. You have to select which details to share based on what will affect the action of the story. Skip details that don’t matter to the central purpose or action.

For example, in my story above, I include the details that I had finished my PhD in English and that I had taught numerous classes in the English department. These are relevant to where I am in my life and how I was feeling as I went to the barbecue that summer and they relate to the other people in the story and the outcome.

But I left out a million other details about who I am and why I am the way I am. For example, I didn’t include in the story that my first job was at a bookstore or that my first job out of college was in publishing. While these experiences are relevant to my work history and speak to my lifetime obsession with language and books, those details are not directly related to this particular story and it’s outcome.

When you choose the beginning, you are isolating a moment in time and providing relevant details that will come into play in the rest of the story.

You will also have to choose the ending. Usually, the ending is the point or purpose, the reason you wanted to tell the story in the first place.

But remember, the ending is also an arbitrary stopping point. You have to decide where it ends–because your life kept going beyond that moment to flow into other moments.

A story is a crafted selection of details that starts at a particular moment and ends at a particular moment. Even as your life moves constantly from moment to moment.

The middle of the story is whatever challenges, complications, problems, difficulties, or even just additional hurdles you faced while trying to reach the ending point.

Now, if we take story structure as the most useful tool for transferring information into human memories, then we can apply this to anything, including our writing at work to make the business we transact memorable to our coworkers, our clients, our vendor partners, and whoever else we might communicate with.

The idea is that an email can use story structure. You identify the starting point–the relevant time/place/project/client–that relates to the desired ending point–the result or outcome that you want your email to accomplish. And then you fill in the middle with the steps, details, complications, and instructions about how the receiver can go from the starting point (the context) to the ending point (the outcome).

Practice telling stories at work. You probably tell stories in your personal life–to your friends and family, even if it’s just a “Listen to what happened to me today!” thing. But stories help us make sense of the world and discern the ongoing stream of information into relevant pieces.

You can help your receivers retain more work-related information by using story structure. All you have to do is practice! Choose the desired ending: outcome or result. Identify the appropriate beginning: the place, time, project, client, or person or some intersection of all of those that connects to the target ending. Then identify the steps, complications, challenges, or instructions for how your receiver can move from the starting point to the ending point. Remove any details that don’t help the receiver understand and act on the intended ending.

Once you start practicing, you’ll notice story patterns every where and will likely keep improving in your ability to use this basic framework to share information with others at work.

Tone is created in the mind of the reader--So read with your happiest voice!

July 03, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Our first experience with language is listening. From the time we are born, we listen first. Then we start testing the waters of speech with babbling and then words and then sentences. Reading and writing come after that.

This matters because our first sense of tone, of how words create meaning and emotional resonance, is through other people’s voices.

Tone is in fact the judgment we make based on our experiences with hearing how people make the sounds of our language. We hear how their pitch changes, how their pacing slows or quickens, how the sounds rise and fall, connect together or separate, where they breath. And over time, we learn how the shape of the words tells us how they feel about what they are saying: are they happy? Mad? Disappointed? Excited? Anxious? Peaceful? We make the emotional conclusion based on what we hear. And throughout our lives, most of us get pretty good at figuring out someone’s emotional state based on what we hear in their voice.

Of course, we also watch people as they speak and learn to read their body language: facial expressions, gestures, posture, eye contact.

So, tone in conversation is incredibly rich because it has the entire body shaping the way the words come out and connect with an audience.

Writing doesn’t have that stuff.

Writing doesn’t have a body.

And because of that, it is very difficult for us to “hear” how the person means what they are saying.

How to introduce two people over email/LinkedIn message

May 16, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Imagine you're at a party, a networking event, a conference: you’re surrounded by people. Some you know; many you don’t. An acquaintance walks up to you and says “Hey, Mina, this is Jan. They’re an expert in marketing who works with small businesses to attract the right audiences. Mina was just saying that she was looking for marketing help for her downtown boutique where she has all kinds of awesome gifts. Maybe a good place for you to look for your mom’s birthday present, Jan?” And while the mutual acquaintance is introducing the two of you, you probably shake hands in acknowledgement. And say “Hi, nice to meet you!” to each other. Then you start talking and the mutual acquaintance walks away having successfully connected you two together.

Sound familiar? We’re used to introducing people to each other in person. Maybe we don’t always have the perfect thing to say about each person, sometimes we don’t even remember both parties' names, but we generally try to say each person’s name and something about them so *they* can connect before we walk away.

When we want to connect two people over email, we’d like it to be as simple and familiar as it is in-person. But sometimes it feels a bit awkward. Do we say hello to both people? Is the email addressed to both of them? What do we include in the introduction? How do we connect them and then make it clear that we don’t need or want to be included on the reply messages–without being rude? This blog post answers all those questions!

Is the email addressed to both people?

Yes. Both people should be on the TO line. If you put one as TO and the other as CC, you are essentially telling one person (TO) to reply and the other person (CC) that they don’t have to. And that doesn’t make sense for an introduction. You want both people to meet each other at essentially the same “time”, so they should both be who the message is TO.

Do we say hello to both people?

Yes. A typical greeting on an email or LinkedIn message should include a greeting word or phrase and the names of whoever is in the TO line. Since you are sending this message to both people, both their names should be in the greeting like this:

Hi Erin and Fredrick,

What do we include in the introduction?

Provide a little contact about each person. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated. You don’t need to give a whole biography. Just a quick sentence. It’s useful if you indicate how you know each person, but the main point of the sentence should be related to why you think the two of them should connect.

Erin runs a local bike shop where I’ve taken my bike a few times for flat tires.

Fredrick, a friend of mine from yoga, is doing his first triathlon and has some questions about how to outfit his bike appropriately.

Once you’ve given them both a little background info about each other, you can add a sentence to explain more specifically your goal with connecting them. It’s also helpful to suggest who might take the lead in replying to the conversation since the strangers may not know who should go first. And it’s nice to express a wish or hope that they can help each other!

Hoping Fredrick can ask you his questions, Erin, and get some help with preparing his bike for the big race!

How do we then make it clear that we don’t need or want to be included on the reply messages–without being rude?

Few of us want more emails, so it’s nice to save everyone’s inbox by excusing ourselves from follow up messages. The easiest way is to just say something like

No need to include me on your replies!

You two can take it from here!

And then just use a standard email closing like “Best” or “Sincerely” or something more personal if you know both parties sufficiently.

Have a good weekend,

Jenny

Whole message

The final message should read like this:

Hi Erin and Fredrick

Erin runs a local bike shop where I’ve taken my bike a few times for flat tires.

Fredrick, a friend of mine from yoga, is doing his first triathlon and has some questions about how to outfit his bike appropriately.

Hoping Fredrick can ask you his questions, Erin, and get some help with preparing his bike for the big race!

No need to include me on your replies!

Have a good weekend,

Jenny

And there you have a simple email or LinkedIn message to connect two people in your network and then let them continue on the conversation from there. Feel free to use this template the next time you want to bring two people together over email or another messaging app!

How to introduce yourself (it's different in writing than when face-to-face)

April 29, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Why do we state our name right away? Most people don’t remember it. Their brains don’t know whether your name is important until they know whether they like you or care about what you have to say.

But we state our name because the person we are talking to needs to know what to call us–the body standing in front of them. Our names are how we humans distinguish one body from another body. It’s a weird concept.

Even though the standard is to say our name first when introducing ourselves in person, most people don’t remember it. They’ll remember something we said or talked about. They might go, “Oh, I met this really cool person who had the same opinion as me on returning shopping carts at the grocery store!” And the next time they see you, they’ll get your name and remember it because–shopping carts!

Your name is a label for your body. And since the body is present in in-person intros, we want the name.

Introductions in writing are different.

Writing with AI: What it is good for and how to use it (if you dare to)

March 20, 2025 by Jenny Morse

Here’s the thing, AI learns based on averages. The average spine looks pretty much the same across humans, so finding anomalies in the spine is looking for deviations from the average and sending those to a human for review. Then the human has more information to determine whether the deviation is related to something about the human’s biology or a potential injury.

But language is creative and cultural and emotional. Sure, there are basic patterns and building blocks and systems, but the potential combinations of words to create meaning are infinite. So, something like predictive text has learned the average use of a word, or the average combination of words in a particular phrase, or the frequency of a phrase in human writing. It looks at what the likelihood is that the next word is x. And that’s just not what language is for. See, the system is a system, but it is also infinite. And words and phrases and sentences can all be combined in unique ways.

So, would you rather sound like the average and predictable every other human? Or is your language informed by where you grew up and what cultures you participate in and your choices about language? I’m hoping that you don’t want to sound just like everybody else. I don’t.

How to email a group: 4 secrets everyone should know

February 14, 2025 by Jenny Morse

So much of the work we do involves teams, departments, managers, assistants, whole groups of people who need to be up to date on what is happening with projects, clients, products, and tasks.

Because multiple humans are involved, the communication can get messy. One email sent to 5 people can quickly expand into 50 emails with different people involved in and responding to different aspects of the work.

And occasionally, something less deadline-driven can completely blow up your inbox: a promotion announcement about someone else that turns into 100 replies with congratuations that you don’t need to see. An invitation to an event that everyone starts RSVP’ing to on the group thread. A birthday and now you are overwhelmed with “Happy Birthday” emails, even though they aren’t for you.

The thing is email has ways for us to prevent some of these messy problems through the way the email tools are designed.