Ed Chait asked a great question: What kinds of things can we do to make our answers more personable?

Here’s what some of you said …

Ed, what I do is speak while I write. That way, I write in my normal voice. When I don’t do that, I tend to sound more formal and less personable. – Ed Romero

I try to adapt my tone, vocabulary, and such to the person. The closer the response is to the way they would answer, if they could, the better, but that’s a lot easier in person than in writing. I try to add touches of language, or references to topics they’d relate to, without overtly introducing them. Or by quoting authors from their native language or country. Mostly, I try to make the answer as practical and to-their-point as I can. Of course, the less “personable” questioners make that harder (but not impossible). – Jeff Laird

Using the second person (you) can help personalize an otherwise wooden answer, but it can also come across as accusatory if the questioner has a pile of problems. I struggle with this because I am definitely a lecturer more than a friend. I pray for protection over all my answers. – Evan Plante

I am aware that my answers to questions about dogmatic Roman Catholic practices versus the same type of add-on things in high liturgy or low liturgy Protestant churches often come across with less warmth and more intellectualism. However, I believe that problematic life decisions in heart-mind application of God’s Word need a true balance of warmth (i.e., heart) and intelligence (i.e., mind). If they are believers, I let them know that I am their (usually older) sister in Christ and rejoice with them or weep with them, as necessary. I pray with and for them, a lot, to share the Lord’s blessings while holding on to His promises that He will never leave or forsake us. With the younger ones who have apparently been orphaned by worldliness in their own families, I tend to get a bit motherly out of concern for their situations but I freely admit that is my perspective in order to help them see things more clearly. There are many absent parental figures or bad parental figures that questioners wrongly use as their main examples of our heavenly Father. They need better examples of Christ living in and shining through us, so that they, too, might see the Father’s face through His face. I hope that makes good sense. – Nanette Harder

One simple thing is to start with a salutation before getting into the answer. You can also end with an invitation for follow-up questions or a “hope this helps” or “I’ve prayed for you” or something like that. – Gwen Sellers

I agree, Gwen. We all ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and it helps me to also ask for help in showing the questioner His love. As an elementary teacher, I know my students don’t care what I know until they know that I care. – Mary Reetz

Ed, I *love* what you said about speaking while you write in order to keep your tone conversational. Writing gives us more time to compose our thoughts and the tendency is to sound more stiff and formal. Do you actually speak out loud when you write or just mouth the words silently? (Yes, he does, but realizes that might not work for everyone)

Gwen’s suggestion of starting and ending answers with a greeting is the same reason we have greeters at church. A friendly salutation at the beginning and a friendly comment or invitation to ask further questions at the end goes a long way towards making the tone of the answer personable. If the questioner included their name, we can include their name in our greeting and maybe mention ours.

Evan, I agree with you that using “you” to address the questioner can come off as accusatory and sometimes self-righteous. I prefer to use the more inclusive “we” and “us” whenever possible as I believe that provides a more personal and empathetic tone. – Ed Chait

I always thank the inquirer for their question, and tell them to let me know if they have further questions. I’m careful on this last one, so it doesn’t turn into an endless debate. I can usually tell the difference between someone asking a question vs someone wanting to debate. – Michael Karpf

Thanks Ed, and I agree that we’re a diverse Body with diverse ways of doing things.

Thanks Michael. I also begin by thanking the questioner for their question as that helps to start things off on a friendly and personable tone.

Jeff, I appreciate your comment about adapting your tone and vocabulary to the questioner. The Holy Spirit helps us to become more sensitive to the “clues” in the questions and what might be written between the lines. One other thing that can help us to connect with the questioner is to use the same or similar terms that they used to express their question in our answers. For instance, if they used “Holy Ghost” for Holy Spirit, we can use the same term in our answer. – Ed Chait

If applicable, I’ll share my own experiences as object lessons. – Tami Condra-Parsons

If it’s been given, use their name. Occasionally I sense the motivation behind their question and address that as well. Or several possibilities. It lets them know that we are not providing canned answers and try to get beyond the surface. I also read mine out loud to catch errors, double words, or awkward wording, jargon, etc. Thank you all for sharing. Much here I can identify with. I might want to send some of my personal questions to Jeff or Ed! Which Ed? Oh either one would be great! – William Brenner

(This has automatically posted by the AnswerBot), be personal, like a real person conversing with a real person. – Tim White