If one googles for “how effective is written communication”, the AI Overview says:
Written communication can be very effective, offering a permanent record, clear interpretation, and wide accessibility, especially in professional settings. However, its effectiveness can be influenced by factors like clarity, conciseness, and the specific context of communication.
How about a real life example to test it? A purchaser with little technical knowledge has to buy raw material plates from a vendor. It provides the fabrication drawings to the vendor, and gets the following reply:
Can you please confirm that we are able substitute imperial thicknesses for the metric shown on the drawings. Please see below for what we can offer.
3mm – Offering 1/8″ (.125″)
5mm – Offering 1/4″ (.250″)
20mm – Offering 3/4″ (.750″)
6mm – Offering 1/4″ (.250″)
The purchaser asks engineering support (that was not involved in the project) to help without providing any other context. Is this effective written communication? Please give it some thought before reading on.
First of all engineering support faces the main challenge in communicating with the purchaser. It won’t be able to get clarifications from her because of the technical barrier. One way to deal with it is to advise the purchaser to connect directly with the design team. The design team would have the knowledge to provide the proper respond. Another way could be to ask to be connected with the vendor directly. Bypassing the purchaser is needed since it cannot help answering the question.
Secondly we can analyse the vendor reply. Anyone reading this the same as engineering support would, could need more clarifications. Is this a substitution of the metric raw material thickness for the equivalent imperial one? Why is the offering listing both 5mm and 6 mm values? At the first glance they could both be substituted with the 1/4″ (0.250″) material. However, it is possible that for the piece needing to be 5mm thick, manufacturing it from 1/4″ material might not fit anymore. This would require further discussion with the design team, meaning that probably advising the purchaser to contact them in the first place was the best option.
Communicating in writing continues to be one of the most challenging ways of communication. Writing clear, concise, and to the level of the audience is hard. Do not fall into the trap of writing your immediate thoughts even if there is an urgency to reply. AI cannot help you either. It provides the next level of help from the traditional googling, but it cannot generate clear and concise replies for you. That is still your challenge and you can get better at it only by practicing it each time.