Questioning
Restate before executing
A long or ambiguous request, which you can already feel is going to head somewhere you did not intend.
How it goes
do it yourself- Write the whole request, then end with: “produce nothing yet”.
- Ask for a three-line restatement, plus the list of assumptions taken wherever your text was ambiguous.
- Correct the wrong assumptions, one by one, then authorise execution.
The instruction, word for word
copy it, then correct it[your request, entire, as you would have sent it] Produce nothing yet. Do three things: 1. Restate my request in three lines, in your own words. 2. List the assumptions you had to make where I was ambiguous. For each, say which other reading was possible. 3. Ask me the single question whose answer would change your work the most. I will answer, and tell you when to go ahead.
- “in your own words”
- Without that, the restatement copies your sentence back and proves nothing.
- “which other reading”
- This is what makes an assumption arguable. Stated on its own, an assumption always looks reasonable.
- A single question
- Ten questions asked at once get three hollow lines in reply. One, ranked above the rest, gets a real answer.
What you get out of it
You fix a misunderstanding in thirty seconds instead of throwing away three pages. The list of assumptions teaches you where your writing is vague: it is always the same places, and this is the cheapest way to find out.