How to write letters that go straight into the bin

by
Decades ago when I worked in the EP, one leading organisation used to send long and unclear letters to the EP.
I read one of the letters on a piece of law I was working on. 3/4 of the way down there was one paragraph that contained something useful in it.
I learned that most political advisers put that organisation’s letters straight into the bin, along with the letters and reports from the Scientologists. I was the only person to have read the letter in the Environment Committee.
More than 20 years later very little has changed. Letters are now sent by email. Most are never read by the intended audience.
Here are some common traits of letters that go straight into the bin.
  1. Write a letter long – over a page.
  2. Use font 10.
  3. Use long sentences. 60-word sentences without punctuation seem fashionable.
  4. Don’t add a subject line.
  5. Use gobbledygook, and banish all traces of plain English.
  6. Presume the reader did their post-doc at MIT on the issue you are writing about.
  7. Don’t have a summary paragraph synthesising your whole case in one short paragraph. at the start.
  8. Don’t provide credible evidence and data to support your point of view.
  9. Use discredited statements of faith.
  10. Come across as a manic depressive wailing into the darkness.
  11. Don’t offer a solution to the political/public policy issue at hand.
  12. Send a letter as some Pavlovian response. Why not give something a phone call or meet them instead?
  13. CC 20-200 people.
  14. Go for a passive-aggressive tone.
  15. Claim you support the initiative and then spend 4 pages saying it is bad but never offering an alternative.
  16. Random bolding of words without rhyme or reason.
  17. Send the letter after the decision has been made.
  18. Send the letter because it will put your views on the record, despite your views already being well known and on the record.
  19. Send a letter to a Commissioner before informing the desk officer.
  20. Send a letter to a Commissioner criticising a unit without thinking the desk officer is going to draft the reply, and the Commissioner not read it.
  21. Send a letter to the Cabinets on Inter-Service Consultation too early or too late.
  22. Send a letter that’s been drafted and edited by a Committee of technical experts. Persuasive writing is rarely their strong spot.
  23. Send a letter in anger. It comes across poorly.
  24. Pile in lots of different points. Have no more than 3 points in the letter, and ideally have one.
  25. Mass emailing of the letter. They’ll be filtered automatically into the bin.
  26. Never bothering to see how the letter landed with the intended reader.
  27. Don’t make clear what you want.
  28. Use discredited experts to support your letter.
  29. Use discredited points to support your points – the climate change denial-like points.
  30. Raise bonkers points that only Roger Helmer MEP would have supported.
The letters that were put in the bin in 1997 are still put in the bin in 2022.
If you want your letter to be read, try not doing any of the above.