This will focus on communicating with professors, but some of the information would apply to other situations as well. Upon completion of reading this, you should send me an email following the information outlined in this post, and tell me how you are feeling about the end of the semester. My email is slillich@jccc.edu.
This is worth 50 points and should be completed by 1:00 pm Monday. I will make a final check of my email at that time; if I have not received a message from you, you will receive zero points. It should be noted that I WILL respond with confirmation of receipt of your message. If you do not receive confirmation from me within a reasonable amount of time, SEND ANOTHER MESSAGE.
WRITE FROM YOUR SCHOOL ACCOUNT
Many professors will not read/respond to messages received from any account except those affiliated with the college. Your email address is free through the school while you are a student and should be used for all school business. Should you utilize a non-school account, like hotmail or yahoo or gmail, it is best to use your name as the username (stacey.lillich@gmail.com). It my have been cute or funny when you were 13 years old to be supercute247@something.com, but in the academic and professional world, your credibility will be greatly compromised if you send messages using odd names. The worst example I have seen of this was someone whose username was silvertongue69@something.com.
SUBJECT
Write a detailed subject. Believe it or not, you are not the only person sending emails to your professor. Leaving the subject line blank, or putting things like "hello" or "class" are too vague. If you are sending me a message to let me know you'll be absent on Friday, an appropriate subject might be "Writing Strategies Class on Friday." Most professors teach more than one class and specifying what class you are writing about makes the process much easier.
BE POLITE AND COURTEOUS
Howtogeek.com covers the remaining sections perfectly below:
Once you’ve used a good subject line, you need to make sure that your opening doesn’t prevent your professor from reading the full message. You don’t want to say “Hey” and then go on with your message. That sets an unprofessional tone that can be a barrier to effective communication. You want to err on the side of courtesy.
Write your message as politely and respectfully as you can.
(Stacey here. I recently had a student send me an email with the greeting "Hola lillich!" First, we are not in Hawaii. Save that greeting for your friends. Second, ALWAYS follow the rules of capitalization when it comes to names! Third, unless you are coaching an athletic team, don't refer to anyone by last name only. I really had a difficult time not just deleting this message based solely on the greeting.)
Here are some other ways to keep your message courteous:
- Always sign off with your name — preferably first and last if there are a lot of students in the class.
- Close with a sentence or phrase that demonstrates your appreciation for their reading your message. It can be a sentence before signing your name, such as, “I appreciate your looking into this Professor John.” Or it can simply be a “Thank you,” followed by your name.
- Stay on topic; going on tangents indicates that you don’t really respect their time, as they probably have hundreds of other emails to get to.
- Don’t assume that they will do whatever it is you request. There are some things professors must do for students, such as giving you permission to enter a course if you meet the prerequisites. But even so, don’t assume that they will do whatever you ask. You don’t want to show disrespect or give them reason to reconsider how and if they want to help you out. So ask politely, indicating as few assumptions as possible. (Stacey here again. In addition to this, you should actually ASK for what you need. For example, don't just tell me "I need to know what I missed today." Form it as a request, "Could you please send me a message, so I know what I missed in class today?")
KEEP IT SHORT
Keeping it short is similar to staying on point. Ideally, you don’t want more than three to four sentences in a paragraph. And you don’t want to stuff one message with too many paragraphs. Unless, that is, you’re sharing feedback or a personal story that will help your professor get to know you and better understand how they can help you out.
FOLLOW UP
Even if you successfully apply the above principles in emailing your professor, and you don’t get a timely response, it could be that your professor hasn’t yet gotten to your email or is currently unavailable for a time. Don’t worry about what the reasons are, simply follow up courteously if you haven’t heard back from them in over two days. Different campuses have different policies or cultures (even if unwritten) for what’s considered a timely response, so it may vary depending on your institution or the context.
Apply the sample principles listed above to your follow-up email. If for some reason you’re still not getting through, another follow-up email may be appropriate after another three to four days (again, depending on the situation). Or it may be time to talk to your professor in person. If that’s the case, make sure you find out from them how to best communicate via email.
Effectively communicating with your professor as needed greatly improves your chances for succeeding in a particular class. Keep that communication timely, smooth and productive so that you can stay focused on your work.
**Stacey's last addition: If you send your professor an email, LOOK FOR THE RESPONSE.
Conversations like the one below drive me bonkers.
I received an email from a student two days ago and promptly responded. We are now back in class and have this exchange:
Student: Did you get my email?
Me: Umm, could you be more specific?
Student: I sent you an email a few days ago asking what we did in class last time.
Me: Yes, and I responded to it right away so you would have no excuse for showing up unprepared today.
Student: Oh. Well, I didn't check my email again. Can you tell me what I missed?
Me: No. Go check your email.
