Proper Communication with College Professors
As part of my college writing course I am required to post my reactions to assignments on a blog, so I am blogging a response to a recent assignment. The topic of this was assingment is college email - how students approach their Professors via email and proper etiquette for sending emails to professors. I'll include a link to the articles that I read.
The first article describes the reation of a few college professors in regards to student emails they've recieve. I must admit that this article caught me a little off gaurd. As I prepared for my freshman year of college, I knew I wanted to give my professors the best impression of who I am by communicating with them in a professional manner, at least until I got to know them on a more personal level. So, when I would send my professors emails I would always make sure that the voice of my email sounded professional and that I was being respectful to my future mentors. Up to now, I was under the impression that all college students felt the same way, but I guess I was wrong. From this article, I learned that students do not want to communicate with their professor in the most professional manner possible, but instead simply send an email using the same tone they would speak to a friend or family member. That being said, after reading this article I felt at ease knowing that from day one, I had used the most professional tone with my professors when sending emails. I know that my emails represent me in a positive manner (not to sound over-confident) and that I haven't sacrificed any relationships because of a silly email.
The second and third articles describe ways to improve your voice in emails to professors. One tip I found interesting was, "When you get a reply, say thanks". I know it is common courtesy to respond with a "thank you" to emails, letting the recipient know that your recieved their response. Throughout my first semester of college, when I have recieved responses from professor, I know that I did not always respond with a "thank you". I can understand how this simple response can be beneficial to the relationship of the student and professor; to be safe, I am going to apply this tactic to my writing. Another tip I found useful was to have a friend read over your email (from the "wiki" article). I had never thought to have a friend read over an email, and I guess if the email pertains to a very important subject, it makes sense to get input from a friend just to be safe.
I found these article to be very informative, if you didn't already know how to communicate with professors via email. The information contained in these articles proved to be a reminder for me; nothing said in these article do I disagree with. If you are a college student, or going to be, I hope that these article benefit you by helping give you a head start on how to build a strong foundation to the relationship you will be forming with your college professors, especially if you know you will be seeing certain ones a lot.