Bottom-line messages or statements are short declarations, a sentence or two in length, of a memo's or letter's purpose--a "cut-to-the-chase."  Almost all non-sensitive memos or letters (communications which will not cause an emotional reaction in the reader) should have a bottom-line statement at the very beginning.  Bottom-lining benefits the reader by saving time.  The reader does not have to wade through paragraphs of text to find out why you are writing to him/her and what you are talking about. 

Bottom-line statements are recognizable by their ability to survive a "so-what"* test.  After writing the first few sentences of a memo or letter, stop and ask, "so-what."  If the answer to this question is not immediately clear, you have not written a bottom-line statement.

The following messages cannot survive the "so-what" test:

The quotations from Fir Tree Manufacturing arrived Thursday.

Sales staff are being trained in five competencies.

On December 13, 1997, Alice Trucker visited each of our divisions.

Here are the messages rewritten into bottom-line statements:

I am going to immediately order next quarter's stock from Fir Tree Manufacturing as their quotations arrived Thursday, and their prices are lower than Douglas Manufacturing's.

In accordance to your wishes, our sales staff are now being trained in the five competencies and should finish training in one month. 

Alice Tucker reports that all of our divisions are on target and are in complete compliance after visiting them in December.

Dulek and Fielden, in the Principles of Business Communication, outline the following bottom-line principles:

• When a message has more than one purpose, bottom-line all of them&emdash;in order of importance.

• State your purpose first, even when you know that your reader needs more information.The remainder of the information can be in the remaining text of the memo or letter.

• When writing a memo, subject and purpose are not the same&emdash;don't assume that your reader knows your purpose from the subject line at the top of your memo.

• Put information of questionable importance in an appendix or attachment.

• In a longer, more complex communication, your bottom-line statement is longer and becomes a guiding statement that tells your reader what direction the document is going to take.  Follow your guiding statement's exact order.

• For a complicated report or written communication, make your skeletal organization clear by using headings and subheadings that follow the order of your guiding, bottom-line statement exactly.If your document has sections and subsections, begin each with a mini bottom-line statement telling the reader what the section or subsection is about.

*From the Principles of Business Communication by Ronald E. Dulek & John S. Fielden, 1990, Macmillan Publishing Company.

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