# Asking for something

Task, audience, length, example. Four parts of a request, drawn.

7 screens, about three minutes. Pictures, almost no words.

## You asked. It gave you something else.

*Picture: One box labelled what you typed with an arrow to a very large box labelled what came back.*

Almost always, the request was the problem.

## Four parts.

*Picture: A cut-away box labelled a good request holding four boxes: the task, who for, how long, an example.*

Most people send the first one on its own.

## Longer is faster.

*Picture: Two panels. On the left one small box labelled write something. On the right four boxes stacked, in green.*

Thirty extra words saves three goes at it.

## The first answer is a draft.

*Picture: Four steps in a row with arrows: ask, read, say what is wrong, ask again. The third is amber.*

Tell it what is wrong. That is the whole trick.

## An example beats an adjective.

*Picture: A box labelled an example of what good looks like, in amber, with an arrow into a green box labelled much closer.*

Paste something you liked instead of saying make it friendly.

## Do today

Take a request you sent this week and add the three parts you left out.

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