Paul Dickson wrote: This message certainly makes a good case for putting the quoted material first, otherwise you have to read the sections backwards in order to understand what's going on? I sometimes do (but not this time). It's actually very appropriate to put the "answer" first when one is trying to get the reader's attention with the solution to a problem. Often, people with lives put lengthy e-mail messages on the back burner. C'mon, Paul. Jenn comes up with an elegant way for SAC to solve an EVAC problem, and you're more concerned about syntax. If I may stoop to your level of pedantry for just a moment, the question mark in your sentence really confused me, since it was clearly not interrogative. Tom?