Although there is no specific email I need to write that made me want to start this thread, I’ve just been thinking about how emotionally exhausting it is for me to have so much anxiety about doing this, and I guess I just want to get some perspective.
I know that relatively speaking (at least based on the endless lists of rules I’ve found by Googling “how to email professors”), my emails aren’t terrible.
For example:
I’m perfectly good at grammar
I always send things from my school email
I specify the class and section whenever necessary
I always start my initial emails with “Dear/Hello Professor _____”
I also usually use “Best” for my closing, and if I’ve never emailed the professor before then I include my full name and class year
However, there are things I don’t know about that stress me out, such as:
If the email requires more than one back-and-forth, I don’t include any further salutations
On the note of salutations, the Dr. vs. Professor dilemma makes me really uneasy
Also, this is probably the most nitpicky thing on this list, but I don’t know if I should end the salutation with a comma or a colon
I slip into contractions sometimes, and I struggle to discern whether certain words are colloquial or not
I try to be concise, but it’s not my greatest skill and I have a tendency to delve into TMI territory
I’ve gotten really mixed advice when it comes to emailing professors after my question is answered to say thanks; is that a way to show gratitude, or does it just clog their inboxes?
Basically, I want to know how much of the stuff in the second list is me over-reacting, and how much is stuff I should work on a bit more. If it helps, the root of this anxiety comes from this one incident a while back when an alumni came to my class to give a talk about what we were studying, and he called my professor by her first name. Some of my friends were really angry afterwards, and while I did eventually understand why, it took a lot of effort to get there. Obviously I would never call a professor by their first name–but I didn’t know it was THAT bad, and if I didn’t know that, then I worry about what else I don’t know.
I understand because I used to be afraid of emailing professors too, but the thing to understand is that professors are just people like you. They get all sorts of emails every day from their colleagues and from the students that they teach. They aren’t spending time analyzing every email to make sure that they’ve gotten the proper amount of respect. They just want to communicate some information and then move on.
As long as you’re not emailing your professor like you’re talking to your best friend (“ayyy what’s up prof m., my man”) you’re fine. Just act professional. Remember: professors are people. You’re allowed to use contractions. They know what slang means. You’re not writing a government document; you are just having a brief conversation.
Personally, I call all my professors “Professor” and not “Dr.” But if your professor has a PhD, either one is fine. I also send a thank-you email if it seems appropriate. Nobody is going to feel upset about that. The proper way to end a salutation is with a comma (just like a letter).
I’m not sure why your friends were angry that an alumnus called the professor by her first name. Your friends shouldn’t care. I wouldn’t call a professor by her first name unless she asked me to, of course. Maybe the speaker had a closer professional relationship with the professor, though, in which case it would have been fine to call her by her first name.
Anyway… in short, there is not a special secret professor code for communicating with your professors. They’re just humans who are probably not thinking too much about you anyway. Just treat them politely and respectfully as you would with any professional contact.
I use professor too, since “Professor” is always correct and sometimes they may not have a doctorate. Remember to add your name at the biginning of the email if you’ve not emailed the professor before, or if you’re in a big class, since they might have a difficult time knowing who you are. The format I use for initial emails is
Dear Professor Y,
My name is Firefly Lights, and I’m enrolled in X section of your class on Z.
I then go on to discuss the problem, and end it with:
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Firefly Lights
This can be overkill if you know the professor somewhat well, but it’s never a bad thing to give extra information.
I think it’s fine to email someone thanks if they’ve helped you; it lets them know the problem is resolved. Like Vinnatan said, you don’t need to overthink these things. You also don’t usually need to be so formal you can’t youse contractions!
I think it’s kind of silly that your friends were angry. It isn’t that bad, and frankly your friends kind of overreacted, especially given the context for the relationship between the alum and the professor. It can be disrespectful for a student to call a professor by their first name (it isn’t always - I’ve had a few professors who preferred their first name; they’ll tell you at the beginning of class), but it sounds like the alum had kept in contact with the professor, and they were close enough that first name basis seemed more appropriate. Either way it wasn’t any of your friends’ business.
Your friends are silly. We had tea with D’s thesis adviser the day before she graduated, and she told D that she was henceforth to call her [first name]. I expect that’s very common.
So just to give a bit more context towards the issue with my friends, the reason it was such a big deal was that it was a sexism issue. The thing is that two other male professors were in the classroom, and he referred to them as Professor LastName. He also apparently interrupted her a couple of times. And I do know for a fact that one of the male professors was his thesis advisor, so I don’t think it can be entirely attributed to a close relationship.
In all fairness, this is an issue that I’ve seen come up in feminist discussions. I had no idea prior to this incident that getting a PhD is a lot of work and that calling someone by their proper title is a sign of respect–largely because my mom has a PhD and elects not to be called Dr. And it’s not something I want either, but I’m normally still a very empathetic person, and it distresses me that it’s actually SO far from what I want that I can’t even imagine what people in that position do want.
I struggle with etiquette issues in general because even when I’m told that X is right and Y is wrong, it’s often hard for me to understand WHY that’s the case. So, for example, when I asked my friend to edit an email I was going to send and she changed “Dear Professor _," into "Dear Professor :” I thought, “Wait, is there a difference between a comma and a colon? Am I not respecting all her hard work if I begin my email with a comma?” I hope that helps explain things a little better.
As for other stuff, I think most of my questions have been answered. It’s worth noting that some stuff, like the contraction issue, is something I’ve picked up from reading the responses I’ve gotten from professors themselves. But who knows.
In general, it’s good etiquette to call somebody by his/her title unless you’re told you can use a first name. That is because lots of work goes into earning those titles! Professors are included in this, so in this case, the speaker might have been disrespectful.
Using a comma after “Dear …” is just customary. It comes from writing a letter. That’s why you write in paragraphs and end with something like “Sincerely”. It’s just the proper format. Nobody is going to get offended if you use a colon, but they might think it’s strange or that you don’t know the right way to do things. It’s such a small thing, though, that most people wouldn’t pay attention to it.
I’ve had some professors use a colon after the “dear” or “hi” salutation and it always felt a little off to me. It’s definitely safe to say, “Dear Prof X,”. When you get more comfortable, you can even write, “Hi Dr. Y,” or something, too. (What REALLY bugs me, though, are professors who do, “Hi, harvestmoon,” instead of “Hi harvestmoon,”. I don’t know why, but that bugs me like no other! It feels overly and weirdly formal/grammatical.)
I totally feel your anxiety on this because I’ve been there. But as someone else said, professors get a lot of emails and email correspondance isn’t something they think too much about. As long as you’re polite with the salutation and ending, you’ll be fine.
And re: first names, as a recent alumna, I call basically all my undergraf professors by their first names now, but if I’m talking to other students still in the program, I’ll say “Dr. X” or “FirstName LastName” in front of them. Yes, I graduated and I’m very close to some of my professors, but other students don’t necessarily have that close rapport, so it’s respectful to use proper titles in front of them. I don’t know exactly what happened with the alumnus in your class, but if I were ever giving a talk in one of my former professor’s classes, I’d definitely refer to him or her as “Dr. So-and-so” unless all the other students called the professor by his or her first name. I just think it’s polite to use whatever term the students in the class use.
“Professor” is always correct, but if you know they have a PhD, then use Dr. Whatever you do, don’t use Mr. or Ms. - this seems to really upset some professors for some reason.
Comma vs Colon: A printed business letter would use a colon, but for email it probably isn’t a big deal either way. You could mirror whatever the professor does, since that’s probably what they prefer.
Contractions: They’re fine. Just don’t textspeak.
Thanks: A brief note of thanks is always appropriate. Don’t expect a response. Similarly, if there’s significant followup, it might be nice to let them know. (Another thing you can do is stick your head in their office door during office hours and thank them in person for their assistance - being sure to identify yourself/the problem so they connect your face with the email person.)
Don’t use a professor’s first name unless you have been specifically told by them to do that.
Don’t use Mr. or Ms or Mrs.
It’s okay to assume Dr…or use Professor if you want
[ul][]Unless it’s the cultural standard for the school to do otherwise (e.g., you’re at Earlham), don’t use a professor’s first name only unless you’re told you can. For all the rhetoric about egalitarianism you might here various places, you’re in an unequal power relationship in the academic hierarchy; title+lastname is safest (with Professor being safe, unless you know they have a doctorate, in which case it’s Doctor—though as alluded to above, please make sure you’re not making sexist assumptions and defaulting to the former for women and the latter for men, as many people do without thinking about it).
[]Formality (though unstilted formality!) is better on initial contact. This isn’t just academia, though, this is life. So it goes.
[]If you look in old books on how to write a letter, you’ll find all sorts of rules on closing the salutation with a comma or a colon, exactly what words to close with for different types of letters, and so on. Don’t worry about those—the guidebooks don’t agree with each other on all that, anyway. However, having some sort of salutation is important (so the recipient knows it’s actually for them, and not sent to the wrong person by mistake), and a closing with your name (not just first names!—there are a lot of Sams in this world) is also important, so we have some idea of who you are.
[]Some faculty get, on bad days, multiple hundred work-related emails. (Myself, I spend a solid chunk of time of each workday just figuring out what requires a reply.) This has two knock-on effects: First, if you send a quick acknowledgment that a response has been received (which is quite appropriate), shorter is better. Second, if you’re raising an issue that requires a reply, that should be clear. Sometimes it’s obvious (The instructions I got on how to access the course materials had the passcode cut off at the bottom, could you please send it to me?), but other times it isn’t, even when you think it is. A gentle, polite followup after two or three weekdays (lots of faculty don’t check their work email on weekends, and you shouldn’t assume they do!) without a response is appropriate, and can let us know that we miscategorized something earlier.
[*]Faculty are human beings, despite the best efforts of some parts of the educational establishment to replace us with bots. Interact with us like you would with any other human being where there’s an unequal power relationship (sorry, but again, that’s the nature of the system), and you’ll be fine.[/ul]
You’ll eventually get a feel for how your department operates. Is it formal? Is it laid back? Somewhere in between?
My department is super informal and everyone goes by first names- even with undergrads. I know people in other departments who have been working with their advisers for years and still call them Prof/Dr X.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten regarding emails is this: if your message can’t fit on the screen of a phone without scrolling, it’s probably too long and may be ignored (for now) and then forgotten. Please, just get to the point!
For me, it depends on which department the professor is in and the general feel.
I default to Prof. X, unless I know for a fact that they’re a Dr or prefer something else.
Several of the music professors I deal with regularly go by Mr/Ms/Mrs and not Professor, so I adjust accordingly.
I’ve had a few CS professors that preferred us calling them by their first name, but that’s just weird to me given the dynamics of the department and the nature of the material. I still use Dr or Prof for them out of habit, even my advisor whom I grade for and have taken multiple course from (she keeps trying to get me to switch to her first name… maybe one day).
In the Department of Theater and Dance, given the dynamics and collaborative nature, things are different, however. Almost all the theater professors go by their first name and I’ll address them as such, usually even in email. For dance, it depends on the professor, but again, most go by just their first name, even those with doctorates. However, I’ve had a few that, while they prefer us calling them by their first name in class/rehearsal/other face to face contact, prefer to be addressed Dr or Prof in emails and other written communication. That seems to be more the dance professors than the theater professors, though. So out of habit, I generally don’t refer to dance professors by their first names in email, even if I do in person.
As a professor, I always appreciate it when students send a quick thank you response after I’ve helped them. (Something really informal such as a reply to my message with “Thanks for the help!”). I don’t respond to those emails because then we would be on an endless email chain, but it sometimes is annoying when I go out of my way to figure out how to help someone and they just never respond again.
One thing that frustrates me is when students write to ask me questions that are listed in my syllabus (e.g., when is the final? What is your grading scale?). It’s a good idea to try to figure out the answer on your own before sending the email. If you can’t, then you should feel free to ask the professor.
Oh, and make sure your subject heading is informative. It is useful to know what your email is going to be about as I scan my inbox. “Textbook question” or “Family Emergency” will be more helpful than “Hey” or an empty heading.
My typical e-mail to a professor goes something like this:
Professor Has-a-name,
My name is student-you-might-not-otherwise-remember from your such-and-such class.
Insert request or question written in a concise manner, with a few paragraph breaks because it’s visually easier to process.
I would appreciate any advice you can offer/your time/some random nicety.
Best regards,
Me
Definitely default to Professor. If I know they have a doctorate, then I go with Dr. After the first e-mail, you may get a better idea by how your prof signs their reply. If they sign with just a name, still stick with some sort of title, unless they’ve said in class that they just go by Suzy or whatever.
I usually skip “Dear…” to avoid feeling like I’m writing to my grandma, and I use a comma unless I’m soliciting a job or research position (then I would use “To so-and-so:”). It’s simple, straightforward, and reasonably acceptable as far as conventions go.
In general, it’s not necessary to worry too much about these things. I don’t know of too many professors that would refuse to reply to an e-mail because they disagreed with the convention you used in the greeting.
Just don’t textspeak.