Student Email Etiquette Primer

Communicating in the Email Age: How Does One Get the Instructor to Answer Emails? 

-- By Regan Barr at The Lukeion Project, The Sassy Peripatetic #30

The subject line read “Welcome to Greek History – Instructions Attached.”
Clearly, someone had hit “reply” on an email that I had sent out several months ago. I was going through my morning office ritual, which begins with wading through 75 or more emails that had filled my Inbox while I was sleeping. I kept scanning until one email caught my attention. “Help! I can’t get into my quiz!”
I immediately jumped on that email. Here was a student who needed my help, and it was time-sensitive. The subject line might be a little over-dramatic, but it did its job; it clearly communicated the nature and urgency of the content and the frustration of the student who sent it. I opened the email, found out what the problem was, and shot back a response that the problem had been fixed.
I continued scanning. There’s another one with a months-old subject line: “Welcome to Greek History – Instructions Attached.” “That’s odd,” I thought, but it certainly didn’t look like a priority, so I kept scanning. By the time I encountered that same subject line a third time, I decided that I was dealing with one of two situations: either someone’s email was malfunctioning, or someone didn’t understand this new-fangled invention called email. I reluctantly and begrudgingly opened the email. “Why aren’t you answering me? I CAN’T SUBMIT MY RESEARCH PAPER! I’ve tried for hours and I sent you a message last night. Now the deadline has passed!”
Well, perhaps using a subject line that was 3 months old wasn’t your best move.
This kind of debacle (complete with accusations of blame, emotional distress, and crushed hopes and dreams) is far too common. Sometimes laziness is to blame, but sometimes people really don’t understand email etiquette. If you don’t want the recipient to completely ignore your email, or worse yet, be irritated by it, you should follow some simple email rules:

1. Always include a RELEVANT subject line.

This is more than just being courteous; it’s also the key to getting the recipient to open your email. Now I know that some people don’t understand this because they only get three emails a week, but gone are the days when people eagerly watched their computers awaiting the “You’ve got mail!” notification. Most people aren’t sitting on the edges of their seats hoping for an email from you. Instead, they’re rolling their eyes at the deluge of email garbage that assaults them each morning when they sit down at their computer.
Instructors, bosses, clients – people who wade through lots of email every day – usually approach the laborious task of email wrangling by focusing on two questions: what needs my immediate attention? and what can I delete without even opening it? An inappropriate subject line can land you in the second category, no matter how important the content of your email.
Those who are new to email are thinking, “Well, how rude! I can’t believe someone would delete an email without even opening it!” The rest of us, however, do it dozens of times a day just to maintain our sanity. Rude is expecting others to perceive the importance of an email that has a deceptive subject line.

2. Always IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

The email read “Mr. Barr, our electricity went out in the storm while I was entering my homework. Can I submit it a second time? – Frodo Baggins.” I was surprised to learn that I had such a famous literary character in my class, so my response was, “Although I’m very fond of hobbits, I’ll need to know who you actually are before I can answer.” The reply floored me: “Well, my mom says that I can never use my real name on the internet.” That makes re-setting homework very difficult.
When sending email to family or close friends, you often don’t need to identify yourself. I know and recognize any email that comes from a family member or close personal friend. But when emailing someone who receives dozens or hundreds of emails a day, like your teacher, your boss, or a customer service representative, give them everything they need to immediately gain some context. I ask my students to give me their full name, class, and time: John Doe, Greek 2, 10:00 am.
When you fail to include vital information, the result is usually a good deal of delay. If I’ve got nothing better to do, I might wander through my class rosters or wade into the student database on a quest to discover the identity of the mysterious sender. But here’s the thing: I ALWAYS have something better to do. My response is usually, “who is this, what class are you in, and which homework assignment are you talking about?” Several hours are usually lost while we play email tag – a game that most instructors really don’t like very much.

3. Always INCLUDE DETAILS.

“Mr. Barr, I can’t see the class recording.” There are many reasons why this might be the case. Here are a few that immediately come to mind: there’s a cat between you and your computer screen; your contact lens prescription is out of date; your computer monitor is turned off; you don’t know the password for the recording; you can’t find the recording link; you’re getting an error message; your power is out because of a storm… should I go on?
There’s simply no way to help this person until I’ve got more information. A lot of time would be saved by simply including that in the first email. If you’re getting an error message, please include what that message says in your email. If your cat is in the way, you’ll have to be creative and solve that one for yourself.
Failure to follow these three rules will result in frustration, wasted time, missed deadlines, and lost opportunities. Perhaps even more important, your recipient may become very irritated. That’s not something you want, especially if the recipient is your boss or your teacher!