Research Shortcuts

SHORTCUT 27. Write Letters That Get Your Questions Answered

SHORTCUT 27 Write Letters That Get Your Questions Answered The first choice of students, when it comes to reaching a real live expert, is to send a letter requesting the information that's needed. We consider it the poorest method of attack unless you need just a few short answers, and unless your questions are both simple and so precise that there's no chance to misconstrue them. Even with these provisos, there are eight steps to successful research by mail. (A sample letter is illustrated on pages 84-85.) 1. Address your letter to a real person (Mr. John Jones, Director of Research), not simply to a title (Director of Research). Otherwise, your letter will probably be readand answered-by an anonymous secretary or intern. If John Jones reads and answers it, he knows that he must assume responsibility for the accuracy of his response. Not so for Secretary X. 2. Tell why you need the information. A serious researcher preparing a thesis or planning a course of action gets a more careful response than someone who's just cunous. 3. Tell why you need his help. Explain why his particular expertise is needed. It not only makes your request seem less frivolous, but may flatter him into a longer or quicker response. 78 Copyrighted Material Write Letters That Get Your Questions Answered 79 4. Tell how the information is to be used. Is it for a class assignment or to help you make a personal decision? Are you asking for permission to quote the person? Do you expect to publish the answer? If so, will it appear in the school newspaper or a scholarly journal? You can't quote a person in print unless you tell her in advance. 5. Ask specific questions. If there's more than one, number them so the responder can just jot down abbreviated answers. Leave room in the margins of your letter for handwritten answers. A busy executive may keep a letter for weeks if she has to dictate a response to her secretary, but if she can just scribble quick answers, she may decide to do it right then and there. (The illustration shows an actual request letter and its response.) Phrase your questions so they can be answered briefly, and don't expect more than a few words for each response-though you may be pleasantly surprised. 6. Refer to your deadline. If you don't have one, create one: it helps people respond quicker. If there is no deadline, the letter tends to get buried and even lost. BUl do give a realistic deadline. Take into account the time it takes the Postal Service to get mail from here to there and back, and in addition allow at least a week for the expert to frame her reply. 7. Have your letter typed; keep it businesslike and short-no more than one page long. Busy people put aside lengthy letters. (To hone your letter-writing skills, we recommend Chapter 13 of our college textbook Good Writing.) 8. Enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope'-even if the expert's at a million-dollar corporation. That's to encourage her to slip her scribbled reply right into the outgoing mail. Copyrighted Material 80 RESEARCH SHORTCUTS 9. Include your e-mail address and suggest that you'd be happy to get a response bye-mail if that's easiest. (But never e-mail a source who hasn't e-mailed you first and said it's ok to e-mail back. It's very impolite unless you're sure the source wants e-mail.) SAMPLE OF RESEARCH BY MAIL (address & date) (salutation) Dear Mr. P , I am under contract to M. Evans Publishers to write, for 1975 publication, a full-length guidance book for undergraduate students who are considering a temporary drop-out from school. One of the questions I'd like to answer is, "When you apply to medical school, will the fact that you dropped out of college for a while affect your application?" I have chosen your medical school as one of several from which to solicit guidance. I'd appreciate it if you, or an appropriate colleague, would take a few minutes to answer the following: l. Does your medical admissions committee have a policy for or against "stop-outs"-temporary dropouts? 2. Is a leave of absence considered more respectable than a drop-out or transfer...