Table of contents
1. How to write an email in a professional environment
Not every professor will insist on this, but my advice is: err on the side of caution until told otherwise by your prof!
There are many reasons why we can see college as a precursor to the professional world, and I also think there are many ways in which we should hold back from seeing all of your college career as merely a training ground for what may come later in your life.
But practicing a genre so you can use it when you need it, that’s a good way to look at writing professional emails, and many of your professors here will appreciate it!
- Subject: use a topic that is meaningful: e.g. “BIO 160, homework for Tue Sept. 15 question”.
- that helps a lot more than subject: “homework”, or the worst: no subject at all! Your prof has other classes and other duties on campus than your course, so a good subject line helps them to filter emails into the right place for answering them speedily and correctly.
- Start the body of your email with a polite salutation.
- Use their title (Dr. X, Prof. Y), not “Hey!” or the worst of all: “Miss Z” for female faculty members.
- Why? Your professors worked hard to get the qualifications to call themselves Dr. (a PhD or equivalent “terminal degree”, that is: the highest degree you can earn in a specific field). We’re quite proud of the effort it took to get that, so please give us that little moment in the sun!
- Some of your professors don’t have a PhD, but they’re still smart as heck and great educators! Address them as “Professor + surname” (Professor = derived from Latin, and indicates a teacher at college/university level), until they tell you to do something else. Note that one prof telling you to use their first name doesn’t give you permission to do that for anybody else!
- Did you know you can keep your message short and to the point? What’s up, and how can we help? We get a lot of email, so don’t write us a novel. Unless you’re in a novel-writing class, maybe.
- If you think your professor doesn’t know who you are, you may want to include a brief reference to the course, e.g. “I’m a student in your course ABC 123”, but if it is already in the subject line, that shouldn’t be necessary.
- Sign off: please add your name, or set up your signature so your name is automatically added, just like an old-fashioned letter.
- In a formal message, it’s polite to sign off with a brief tag before adding your name, but it’s not always necessary.
- examples are “best,”; “thanks in advance for looking into this”
- There are very formal ways of doing that, such as “yours sincerely” or “yours faithfully”, but those are generally not needed in our campus communications.
- Check you added attachments if you promised to include any. I forget to include them all the time, so you’re in good company if you do, but it’s a bit embarrassing!
As you email back-and-forth, an email chain may become less formal, with the salutation and sign-off disappearing, more informal language appearing and even a smiley! But that depends on the professor. For a first email, and until you know their style, I suggest you treat the email as a formal, professional communication.
Optional Writing Exercise:
Write the most unprofessional email possible (but keep it “safe for work”, so no explicit words/images etc) to me about a course-related question. Just imagine you need to ask something about an assignment. Email it to me, and I’ll share the most outrageously unprofessional ones in class so we all know what not to do in future!
Have fun!
2. Keep on top of your email
Use the Stack Method: Watch the free videos: https://www.stackmethod.com/#video-lessons. This is a great method to organize your email. People who have been teaching organizational skills for years and found this method said this a life-changing but simple and elegant method, and it certainly has kept me much more on top of my email than I used to.
It is a free method that only requires you to organize a few folders in your inbox: no need to buy anything or download anything. In addition to the suggested folders used in the videos, I have one with each course number, nested under 7-when working on (this makes more sense when you have watched the videos): so your emails that don’t require an immediate response are filed away in 7-when working on [course number] in my stacks.
Optional Writing Exercise:
Write a short blog post about your relationship with email. Are you permanently behind? Is your inbox neat and tidy or are is it a big mess and you just don’t care? Will you try the Stack Method? Categorize your post with your course number if you want it to be part of your portfolio for the semester.