Early in my marketing communications (marcom) career, my supervisor gave me a pretty typical writing assignment. "This datasheet needs to be written pronto. Here's some information -- it should give you everything you need." I looked over the material and thought, "How am I supposed to write a datasheet using this? I don't even know what this product is!" Being new at the job, I didn't want to appear "dumb" by asking too many questions.

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Dianna Huff is a B2B marketing communications consultant and copywriting expert. You can subscribe to her e-newsletter, The MarCom Writer, at the DH Communications website.