Do you have a hard time explaining yourself in e-mail?

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zeldapsychology
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17 Feb 2011, 6:17 pm

I can type here fine and explain my problems ok. Sadly when it comes to discuss a class problem I draw a blank and am confused on how to explain my problem I am having to the teacher. I feel awful today since I called the teacher this morning and she returned my call while I was out. She told my mom I could just e-mail her but I found it hard. I explained to her though I'm sorry I missed your call I was out and explained that I'm better explaining the issue verbally and I hope to hear from her again. (I tried to make it sound nice.) I was curious if others were like this. Many professors after e-mailing them questions are left confused by my question and problem saying Oh was it this well the answer is X when that wasn't even the problem I was speaking of. :-(



dunbots
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17 Feb 2011, 6:24 pm

I'm the opposite: I've emailed my mom to talk about things before that I don't feel comfortable talking about in-person, or I just don't know what to say, and writing an e-mail gives me time to think about what I want to say a lot more.



Cornflake
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17 Feb 2011, 8:48 pm

I'm with dunbots on this one. It's much easier for me to express things in text instead of speech.


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TeaEarlGreyHot
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17 Feb 2011, 8:55 pm

I have a hard time with both, really. Emails are too personal, and expressing myself without sounding like an insane poet is next to impossible.


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CockneyRebel
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17 Feb 2011, 10:51 pm

It's easier for me to express myself in an E-mail than on the phone.


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ToughDiamond
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18 Feb 2011, 10:28 am

Same here - I have no big problem with emails but phone calls and conversations can be a lot more difficult.

If you can express yourself OK with WP posts, why not try typing your email into a WP posting box, as if it were a WP message, and then copy and paste it into an email instead of hitting the "post" button? Might just work. There's got to be some reason why you get hung up with an email to a particular person but not with a post to a particular group. Maybe it's something to do with how you see the recipients? I'm always quite mindful of who I'm writing to, and it does make writing harder if I feel that the reader is going to be difficult in any way. So if I was emailing my boss then I'd find it hard to speak my mind freely, if I was emailing a partner I might worry a lot about saying all the expected little courtesies and reassurances, but with posting on a board like this I feel pretty free to just make a point or tell a story without doing any harm.



YellowBanana
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18 Feb 2011, 4:12 pm

Interesting question.

I find it extremely difficult to express myself in speech - sometimes being unable to speak at all, especially if I recognise that what I want to express is being misunderstood.

I find it easier to express myself in writing and rely on email a lot for this.

But because expressing myself in speech is so difficult, I find that when I email I want to ensure things are expressed correctly and really explain things so that people will understand - unfortunately this "over-explanation" results in an overly long email which often has the opposite effect and people don't understand what I'm trying to express.

So I think that I probably have equal difficulties expressing myself both in speech and in writing, but in different ways.